Misfit
by Oracles Maiden
Summary: Destiny and her genes made her what she is, but are the lies she’s told and the privilege she holds what make her who she is? *Original character*
1. Buckingham raid

**Misfit- chapter 1.**

**Disclaimer- I own very little; a piece or paper with some letters on, half a bar of melted chocolate, a cream for a rash on loan from my sister. However I do own Edward, Jools and later on Lizzie too. All the others are the property of Marvel and their respective creators, (Who I plan to kidnap and force to do my bidding, but you didn't hear that from me right.)**

**Notes- Spoilers for X2 and X3 so if you ain't seen it or read it… (Is there anyone who HASN'T yet?)**

**Thanks to Anything but Ordinary3 who's encouraged, supported and helped with a large section of plot. Why not take a look at her Retribution X series? Funny, strange, disturbing, and all for the cost of regular line rental and computer upkeep. Also thanks to her regular reviewers who I hope may flock to see what the hell I'm doing. Please Read and review, cause I need the ego boost.**  

And inspiration? Listen to the Amy Studt's 'Misfit' and you'll get the story. 

_"__So what we don't look the same?… __  
__So what, i don't play your game?… __  
__So what if i don't???…_

_Your superficial i'm a 'Misfit'___

_But thats Ok!"_

**-Amy Studt "Misfit."******

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Buckingham palace was as it always was, the centre of attention to the flock of tourists surrounding the gates with cameras and camcorders. Amongst the crowd could be heard a myriad of different accents; Dutch, American, South African to name but a few. All wanted a picture of the beautiful palace on a sunny summer day, the kind that England didn't have all that often. Men and women posed by the guards in their pillbox red uniforms and bearskin hats, hoping that something they did would make the men break face and laugh, but they didn't, they were too well trained. Everyone's attention was grabbed however when the group had to be parted by these guards for the iron gates to be swung open for an approaching car. 

      It came passed the gates and the gawping crowd and started to swing about before reaching the steps. A footman opened the left hand door and from under the car a highly polished black man's shoe could be seen. The crowd snapped and stared, hoping that they were about to glimpse a member of the ruling family. Instead a short red headed man appeared out of the car, thanking the footman as he went. The flashes from the cameras continued as the crowd whooped and called out. When all of them went home they would have a story to tell. They hadn't seen the King or Princess, but they had gotten a glimpse of the Prime minister.

      Jools, the head butler to King Edward and his daughter held open the main door to the palace for the first minister of the British realm. The man waddled up the steps, clutching his briefcase to his chest. When he finally was in the door the man halted and was forced to take some deep breaths, the man was very out of shape. 

      "Good Afternoon Prime Minister." He started the formal procedure of greeting that he preformed every Tuesday when the man arrived. 

      "Good Afternoon Jools" The man struggled to answer as always.

      "His Majesty is waiting for you" Jools started to move of down the corridor the other man however stayed in the same spot, trying to regain more of his breath. When he was composed enough he waddled after the butler. 

      "How is His Majesty today Jools?" He asked.

      The butler stopped and waited until the minister was level with him then matched his slow pace. "A little flustered sir. Her highness had some of her friends visiting this morning, some people who the guards thought were also friends of her highness appeared too. We had to eject them, but we can't be sure that all of them left."

      "Have the friends gone too?"

      "Yes sir."

      "Good I don't want any rowdy teenagers interrupting us again." The minister sighed as they reached the doors to the drawing room. Jools prepared to open the doors as he did every Tuesday afternoon, the Prime minister straightened his tie and dusted the crumbs off the bottom of his shirt from the hurried breakfast he'd had that morning.

      "Have a good briefing sir." Jools smiled as he opened the door and the other man stepped over the threshold. 

      "Thank you Jools" The minister called back.

      Meanwhile in another less public part of the palace something completely opposite to the mundane was happening. 

      There had been break-ins at the palace before, but none like this, normally they were perpetrated by one man working alone with no masks and minimum weaponry. This however was the opposite.

      A team of five men had entered through an open window on the second floor after disabling the inexperienced young soldier standing guard outside, the man would recover… eventually.

      The men pulled up the rope from the window so that there would be no sign that they had entered, the guard was conveniently hidden from view in the bushes. One of the men pulling the rope however wasn't as careful; his elbow hit a table behind them and knocked an antique vase off and onto the wooden floor before. The smash could be heard throughout the palace. 

      "Your Highness?" A young voice could be heard from down the hall and around the corner. The man strode down the corridor, round the corner and into view "What the hell?" the masked intruders pulled their guns from their belts and started firing down the hall, they missed the man who rolled under a table. "Alpha leader this is Delta Gamma, intruders in the Princesses hallway. Intruders are armed, repeat, intruders are…" and then he was cut off by a bullet to the throat. 

      A door opened a little way down the corridor and a young woman stuck her head out, black hair flowing about her face. "What's happening out…" A shot into the air answered her question. She screamed and pulled the door again shut, the lock could be heard to be working.

      The men ran down the corridor and started pulling at the door, kicking the wood trying to make it collapse. All five screamed through the door about the terrible things they were going to do when they got in, and how it would be easier on everyone if she just let them in. 

      They didn't see however a door open on the opposite wall a few doors down, and the young blonde head that peeped through the opening, watching the attackers before swinging the door fully open.

      "Hey guy's. Five on one, isn't that a bit of a disadvantage?" She smiled, distracting them.

      The men fired at her, but as if by magic the girl dodged all of the bullets. The men fired again and again she dodged them, jumping clean out of the way before they hit. The men emptied their clips and not a single bullet hit the woman. The men looked at each other in shock, no human being could pull off the feat this girl had.

      They ran towards her, hoping that her luck only extended to guns but the girl too rushed at them. Halfway down the hall she jumped into the air as they continued to run at her. She bounced off one wall onto the other and was suddenly behind them. The force of their speed though caused them to go crashing into the wall in front of them. The woman giggled as only two men stood up to face her again. 

      "Come on then boys, and I'll show you what I can really do." She invited. Again the men started to run towards her but this time she jumped into the air and seamed to hang there for a second before raising her leg in a perfect roundhouse kick. One man fell unconscious with half his mask broken off, the other fell to his knees before regaining his balance and standing again. He started to punch her, but none of his punches hit her, she caught or dodged each of them, the final one she caught and then disappeared into the air, he didn't even blink and she was gone. 

      Then he felt something behind him, before he got the chance to see the girl's face she had kicked him in the back of the head and sent him falling into unconsciousness. 

      The young woman stood over him in her black dress and knee-high boots. She watched for any signs of movement before she leaned down and turned him over. His gold mask hid his face and his black jumper and trousers gave no indication of who he was or who had sent him, except a small emblem embroidered on his left breast pocket, a four pronged fork in red inside a golden H. She had no idea what it meant but committed it to memory.

      The half smashed door started slowly to open and the black haired girl peeped out scared. 

      "It's ok to come out now." The blonde smiled as she watched the other woman, both looked at each other in amazement, one standing inside the remnants of the door of the Princesses bedroom, the other crouched over the body of a would be attacker.

      "Freeze!" A mans voice screamed as he pointed a gun at the back of the woman on the floor's head. Slowly she raised her hands, surrendering.

"I just have a feeling, I'm not supposed to be here." She sadly admitted. In the back of her mind though she was wondering if she had truly been caught though.

**Reviewing isn't antisocial, in fact it is totally the opposite… so please, feed a hungry child, give just one review per chapter. ******


	2. The lady vanishes

**Misfit- Chapter 2**

**Disclaimer- I own nothing, (My sister asked for the cream back.) Well I do own Lizzie and her classmates, but they don't pay rent. Marvel owns the X men, at least until I can consolidate my Power and stage a mass breakout of the characters, at which point there will be a party at mine!  **

**Notes- Still spoilers. Again with the thanks to Anything but Ordinary3 for the advise and badgering to get on with it. Again, hopefully the reviewers. Again check out Retribution X for a good giggle. To all however please read and review, and remember an author is for life and not just for Christmas.**  

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Three months later…

The sun lazed on the soft Greenwich grass of the Xavier institute for gifted youngsters. It was the 13th of September- intake day, and the students were milling around after lunch before starting what seemed like a long walk back to the lessons that waited. Some lazed in the shadow of the trees framing the large mansion, others played on the basketball court with those who were too tired to play sitting on the sidelines, watching. It was the perfect image of the typical North American schoolyard… except that it wasn't. 

      Those playing basketball would never make their dream of the NBA because of the strangeness of their abilities. Being able to leap 3 metres into the air as though you were stepping up a shallow step would probably contradict about a thousand rules. Those under the trees were playing cards and chatting- at least those who weren't telepaths were chatting, they were talking without a word being uttered.

      Logan wandered through the grounds watching the students at leisure, inspecting those who were using their powers and making sure that they were doing it safely. Looming above almost all of the pupils gave him an advantage, his presence made most reconsider making any trouble- and that was the way he liked it. As much as others would loathe to admit it, Logan rejoiced in the fact that his charges were slightly afraid of him. It gave him the power.

      He sauntered with his back straight, the sun caressing his jet-black hair and ruff-leathered skin. Even though it was September the Greenwich sun still shone bright.

      "Why in hell did you do that?" Came a young voice, distracting Logan from his thoughts of peace. He turned to see a boy standing amongst a group of sitting people, his comment was directed at a boy who was making his way down from a position in one of the browning trees.   

      "Sorry Petite didn't see you there," The tree dweller smiled as he walked towards the other boy, offering his hand. The other boy looked as though if he could rip the offered arm off then he would.

      "How could you not mean to send a ball of fire at me, Mate?" The boy smiled flippantly. The tree dweller stood for a second before answering "Actually its energy, not fire. Secondly it was a card not a ball…"

"I don't care what the hell it was all I know is that you sent it flying at my head!" The second boy yelled pushing the tree dweller. The first didn't respond, just calmly reached into his pocket and pulled out… the queen of spades. 

      "Last time I didn't mean to hit you, this time I will." The card began to glow fiercely between his fingertips and those surrounding the scene pushed back against the tree trunks, others fled for cover, Logan stood and watched. 

      The other boy faced down the card carrier looking him straight in the sunglasses that obscured his eyes. Card boy flinched, casting his arm back and snapping it forward and releasing the card, sending it souring through the air straight and true, the other boy pushed his hand forward palm up as if protecting himself at the same moment that the card boy was starting the move. A blinding blue and white flash followed, disorientating both Logan and the card boy who couldn't stop completing the move. The card did go straight and true but landed a few feet clear of the opponent, the card exploded on impact with the stonewall. If it had connected, it would have knee capped the other boy.       

      Now was when Logan decided to take action. As the card thrower reached into his pocket again, the boy with curly black hair from which the flash emanated, took a chance and lunged trying to grab hold of anything of his attacker. Logan though stepped between them, clutching hold of the front of their collars and hoisting them into the air. The two started kicking their legs helplessly and clutching at his arms hoping that he might let them go, but Logan didn't even bat an eyelid. He was a little preoccupied in keeping his anger down as the boys called him and each other every obscenity under the sun. His fight though ended abruptly when his attention was drawn by something out of place.

Beside the risen pond a girl stood hunched over, looking at her reflection. There was nothing strange about that; Logan had seen almost all of the students perform this act at one time or another. It was the girl, not the act that was out of place. Logan knew he had never met her before but she was strangely familiar. 

      She wore a light cream summer dress under a thick brown Suede jacket that was two sizes too big for her- it obviously belonged to someone else. The fringes on the sleeve left ripples on the surface of the water as she purposefully let them come into contact with it. As she did so she scuffed her brown knee length boots against the paving stones, and hummed absentmindedly. She obviously didn't want to be there. With a large sigh, which only Logan's finely attuned hearing could detect from this distance, she reached her hand and pushed a thick strand of her yellow-blonde hair behind her ear, the rest was kept firmly away from her face by an Alice band embroidered with silk flowers that covered her hairline and half her forehead.

      Logan didn't know where he had seen her before but it hadn't been in this style of dress- and this was backed up by the fact the girl obviously wasn't comfortable in them.

      She looked up from her reflection, and met his gaze. She gave a worried smile obviously in recognition that he was holding two young men by their shirts about half a foot off the ground. 

      Where had he seen her before?

      "Please sir, just let us down…" One choked, drawing his attention back from the distance.

      "I don't want to die…" The other exclaimed, drawing giggles from the girls he was trying formally to impress. Logan looked on him with pity, tears were starting to form in his red eyes. 

      "You boys do this again and I'll slice you in half." Logan could feel the boys both gulp, before he released them and let them fall with a bump to the ground. Both let out a small yelp of fright, but Logan didn't check to see if he had hurt either boy. He turned back to the pond, to where the girl had been standing seconds before… where now was only an empty space of Greenwich sunshine. 

"Thank you for agreeing to see us at this late stage, we know it's a huge inconvenience for everybody…"

"No inconvenience at all Mr Johnson, we take new students on throughout the year, this isn't any big deal for us." Storm assured the man calmly as they walked the hall that lead to Professor X's office. The man seemed a little uptight to Storm- she guessed it was the same feeling she felt when she walked through a room of ordinary humans, the thought that the unknown surrounded and could leap out and devour you at any second; the feeling of fear.

      The stuffy Englishman coughed behind her, trying to gain her attention. She turned a little as she walked so he could ask what question he felt he needed to. He looked utterly embarrassed, his face had turned a deeper shade of red and his tones were whispered "Excuse me miss but… um… are you one of…" He halted, unsure what to say.

      "Them?" Storm completed, knowing it was what the man was longing to say. He just gave an uncomfortable grin, nodded and when he thought her back was turned again gave an uneasy shudder. "Yes" sighed Storm. She had long ago accepted that the populace of the fragile world they lived on would forever see the two sides of the coin as 'Us' and 'Them', but having such a bigot on the grounds of the academy, a place where tolerance was taught, was mystifying. If it wasn't for the sake of a young woman who needed their help Storm would have called upon her powers to get the horrid little man out of the school as fast as the wind could carry him. 

      When she had looked around Storm hadn't noticed the girl that was being taken to the office though. She turned quickly to see that she had been mistaken, the girl still moped behind, looking disheartened at the wooden panels of the wall. Since the pair had arrived; Mr Johnson and his ward Elizabeth, the girl had constantly been dragging on the mans heals at his own insistence, every time Storm indicated something that might grab the young mutants interest the girl got a look in her eyes that begged that she be able to leap forth to see the wonders- but each time he shot down any hope of her being allowed such a seconds pause. 

      Finally they reached the offices door, outside as usual on intake days sat two large brown leather chairs for those waiting for an audience with the headmaster. Storm indicated that they should sit and while Elizabeth took the opportunity for a rest, Johnson merely stood, ramrod straight against the wall, straightening his charcoal grey suit. 

      Storm checked her watch, if she was correct then there were still 2 minutes left of the lesson before she could interrupt the Professor and bring her guardianship of the man and the girl to an end- he couldn't annoy her any more in 2 minutes… could he?

      Almost as if he had heard her thoughts he leaned forward and sharply tapped the girls leg, which was folded under the other on the chair. "Elizabeth, manners please." His English accent flavoured with distain. The girl gave a sulky look and removed her leg from underneath her, straightening her cream summer dress as she did. "Sorry sir." She bit back with just the right amount of annoyance in her identical accent. Storm wished she could have spoken to him so. 

      It was obvious that these two were not father and daughter, probably not even related by blood- she prayed not by marriage either, if he had a wife then if would mean that there was the chance of more like this monstrosity. She was blonde, he had a short crop of black sprouting from his head. She was tall and had curves in the right places that she tried to hide under the thick dark brown Swede jacket that she had bundled around her. He on the other hand was short and thin, thin enough that his face looked like a daggers blade. All of her facial features however exuded warmness, except for this moment in which her lips were pursed and thin with annoyance at the snivelling bag of slime that stood beside her seat. 

      The door opened and a hand full of young people bolted out of the door calling back thanks to the occupant.

      Storm stuck her head in when all had left and asked if now was an opportune moment for a meeting with a potential new student. When he replied it was, Storm indicated for the couple to enter. The man made it to the door before realising his companion wasn't coming… she wasn't coming because in the space of a second she had vanished completely.

      Elizabeth gently eased her way through a doorway, checking right and left that no one was coming. If her timing was right then all the other mutants would be in their lessons and settling down to another hours hard work. They were doing what they should have been doing. She however had no thoughts of going back to what she was supposed to be doing, she wasn't going back to sit while Johnson spoke to the headmaster like she wasn't in the room- she'd had to put up with years of him doing that and she had had her fill, it wasn't going to happen. She wondered if other nineteen-year-old girls had to go through that kind of ritual humiliation, she wondered if it was normal. Then again she was anything but normal she reminded herself, which was one of the reasons she was here. 

She finally stepped through into the next corridor, careful not to make a sound as she did so. Her boots clicked against the polished wood floor but she had neither the time nor the energy to stop it, it was incidental anyway no one would pay any attention to such a small amount of noise, it was just the fact that she was making so little. 

She wandered past thick wooden door upon thick wooden door, wishing she could take a peak inside without endangering her newfound freedom. So instead she wandered, thinking about what kind of weird and wonderful lessons were taking place behind the walls, it would be magical, fantastical… this was a real life Hogwarts. 

She leaned forward, turning the knob of the door in front of her, deciding that life was nothing if risks were not taken- plus the temptation was too great to combat. She opened it just slightly so that she see through the slit and hear what was going on, just to get a flavour of what she would have to sit through in the advancing months if she was accepted. 

"Right, today we deal with guarding against weapons. You'll all have your own way of protecting yourself of course but there are some standard defence techniques you can use…" Elizabeth listened spellbound as the deep masculine voice detailed the events for the lesson ahead. She leaned closer still until her cheek was pressed against the cold hard wood, she didn't listen for anything but the teachers voice as he told the class that he would be using throwing knives on a target. 

Because she was concentrating so deeply on the voice she didn't hear the sound behind her, or see the mutant materialise from some point further down the hall. The first knowledge she had of it was something clutching her wrist. She gulped as she realised someone had hold of her and gingerly looked down, unsure of what she would see and if she wanted to see it. 

It was a paw. A blue paw. A large blue two fingered paw, with a thumb. A large blue two fingered paw, with a thumb, on the end of a blue arm. She gulped again, her pupils dilated with fear.

Slowly she turned and faced the… thing holding her. She didn't know what to think really, because fear had grabbed hold of her stomach and was twisting and turning in it and that was all she could think about. She didn't really have any brain cells left to register the fear of a blue demon with scars covering his face, which looked back at her with yellow eyes. 

"What are you doing out of Lessons?" He asked in his thick German accent. She couldn't answer, just let her mouth hang open as she stared, and then finally as the shock hit her brain… finally her body let the fear leave her body in the quickest way it knew how.

She screamed. Long and loud. And she didn't stop. 

From inside the room the sound was loud, not as loud as some screams that the academy has witnessed, but still loud. 

Logan turned to his charges as they sniggered and whispered, each perplexed as to what was happening but each showing an individual response to the situation.

"Hey, lets keep it together guys" Logan growled gaining the attention of the class of 7 again. The four boys, three girls each had an ability which meant that they could avoid the path of a thrown knife quite easily, so none were in real danger of his test. All they had to do was have quick enough reflexes to move, which he had explained.

He pushed the shrill squeaking to the back of his head "I'll give you a clue as to how long you've got till the blades hit." He told the students as he prepared himself to throw a knife at the target hung on the back of the slightly ajar door. The second he let go of the grip, sending the weapon arching through the air, he knew he'd made a grave error hanging it there though.                                 

As the knife spun through the air the door fell open as a young woman tumbled over the thresh hold backwards. The group gasped as the woman tumbled into the path of the knife while Kurt Wagner whose blue face she was seemingly fleeing could only stand helplessly by. 

Logan winced as he saw the blade come into contact with the soft flesh at the back of her neck and thought he heard a soft yelp before… nothing. The girl no longer was tumbling through the doorway; the knife continued arching through the air, as though it had never touched anything before finally smashing into the wooden panelling of the opposite wall. Kurt reappeared with a BAMF having left in the knife's path a cloud of blue smoke. 

"Where's she gone?" He questioned, looking at the spot where she would have lain. Logan moved forward into the corridor pulling the knife out of the wood like it was warm butter. The corridor was empty apart from him. "No sign out here bub." Kurt's expression changed to a look of even deeper concern "Storm sent me to find her, I didn't mean to frighten her." From his position, Logan could see the entire room and the full group of students that stood collectively watching the two teachers look for the girl who had disappeared before all of their eyes. 16 eyes staring at the two. 16? Logan thought back for a second, Before the interruption there had only been 14 eyes belonging to 7 people. Now there was an extra pair shifting uneasily between the floor, the Blue mutant and him. Two ice blue eyes that Logan had never seen before, belonging to a girl. The girl he had glimpsed at the pond side that he was sure he knew. 

He let no one know though as he crossed the room to Kurt who gave him another concerned look. "What is wrong Logan?" Logan walked slowly past him lingering just long enough to whisper, "Just be ready." As he did. As he walked forward the students in front of him parted in silent fear, again he thanked whatever divine force had made them afraid it made things quite easy for him at the moment. Finally he reached the last group the two that the girl stood behind parted and left the girl standing self-consciously in front of him. She looked up into his face, and gulped knowing she had been caught. "I'm in trouble aren't I?" She sadly grinned. Kurt and Logan nodded in unison. She rubbed the back of her neck embarrassed, "I'll come quietly." She conceded.

Review isn't a town in Switzerland where the Von Trapps vacation, it's an invaluable service. And your duty.  


	3. The power to disappear

**Misfit- Chapter 3**

Disclaimer- I own noting except my destiny and my large collection of Hugh Jackman Photos that are currently covered in drool. MMMMMM… Hugh Jackman drools Um oh yeah… all that is not mine belongs to them but what is mine belongs to me. 

**Notes- Ok. Thanks to Anything but Ordinary3 and ncsgirl for their kind reviews for this fic. Thanks to ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer for their reviews of Retribution X which made me write this, simply to make people stop bouncing on my brain. Thanks, please R and R. Now on with the show!**    

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Professor Xavier sat at his desk listening to the man speak. It wasn't often he got to speak with someone who had had prolonged access to one of the students other than his teachers. Runaways were the usual pupils he encountered, brought by social workers to the academy at his request. This man had made inquiries himself for his charge having heard rumours of the schools true identity. 

The girl having gone AWOL had given him an opportunity to talk to the man in charge of Elizabeth's care.

Mr Thompson passed back and forth across the length of the room muttering under his breath "Damn girl… Always ends in trouble… should have kept her where she was…" It went on and on.

Xavier let his mind connect with that of the man. 

"You're not Elizabeth's father?" Xavier ventured. The man turned quickly to face him "No." He slowly approached the desk before taking a seat on one of the chairs in front of it. "I'm here on behalf of Elizabeth's father. As much as he wanted to be here his schedule was concrete, he couldn't move any meetings- he apologises for that." He sat for a second before leaning forward perplexed, "How did you know." Xavier tapped his temple "But you don't have to be a telepath to see that you are far more concerned for your charge than any father. You have to be taking care of someone else's child."

"A telepath and a wise man. I take it you are careful when to read another mans thoughts and what you read?" 

"Exceptionally careful. And I sense you don't want me to…"

"Don't try to discover anything about Elizabeth from my thoughts." He snapped. Xavier was quiet taken aback by the man's outburst but the man regained his composure. "What I um… what I meant to…" He looked shocked by his own actions just as much as Xavier was. "Judge Elizabeth on her own merits instead of what I think of her. She's a fine woman, Professor- rash sometimes, brazen often but none the less a fine woman. I think of her highly, but I see the faults in her more than I see her perfections."

Xavier sat and though for a second. The man didn't want him to access his thoughts on the girl, but that didn't mean that he couldn't…

The door swung open and Storm, Logan and Kurt frogmarched a young woman in, she wasn't resisting- more looked annoyed at the fact she had been caught.

Thompson gave her an angry glare and shook his head. "I'm ever so sorry Professor, all of you, to put you at such inconvenience. Elizabeth what were you thinking of…"

"I just wanted to have a look around. You were marching me to this office so fast I didn't even get to look at the front door!"

"There will be plenty of time for that if you are excepted, if on the other hand you are NOT as may prove to be the case after your little disappearing act, I don't want to use up to much of these… People's valuable time." 

"Believe me it's not a inconvenience. I've been kept waiting for a lot longer than the time taken on young Elizabeth's little self-guided tour." He shot the girl a friendly smile, which she tried to return without her companion noticing.

"What are you smiling at? I don't think this is a laughing matter young lady."

Logan, Kurt and Storm shared a three-way look. Xavier heard all three thoughts, all exactly the same "God this guy is pissing me off" in one form or another. 

"Mr Thompson, why don't you take a seat outside? Now that Elizabeth is here I would like to have a chat with her. Get to know each other. Is that alright Elizabeth?" The girl opened her mouth to speak but Thompson interrupted. "Whatever you would like to say to her can be said in front of me." He assured. Elizabeth rolled her eyes back in her head, she had obviously had this talk before. "Thompson, I can talk to someone without your input." The girl's tone of voice had changed, more to the point, more forceful. The man just looked at her for a second before getting up to her "Elizabeth I don't think that is wise." He warned. Her eyes flashed with anger momentarily and Xavier could feel it in every cell in her body, but she took a breath. "I can handle this, thank you though for your concern." He looked befuddledly between Xavier, the mutants and Elizabeth before conceding "Fine, I'll be waiting outside." He left quickly with all eyes following him.

Xavier let out a sigh of relief. "Storm could you make sure that Mr Thompson is comfortable, maybe fetch him a cup of tea." Storm let out an exasperated huff and followed out the door that Thompson had used. Kurt and Logan stood for a second, unsure. Xavier sensed it, "Thank you gentlemen, I don't believe Young Elizabeth will be doing anymore exploring for the moment. Go back to whatever you were doing." Logan's thoughts were peppered with expletives as he left, Xavier got the impression that he rather wanted to find out more about the girl. Kurt simply teleported out of the room into the corridor outside. Elizabeth was left standing alone. 

"Please, take a seat. I don't think this will take long." She stepped hesitantly forward and tugged the seat a little further from the desk so that she could cross her legs on the chair without hitting her knees against the wood. She looked a little worried, but not scared like he would have expected. 

He looked at her, trying to get a connection with the girl like he had with the guardian, hoping for a better response from her. Her mind was open, willing to be read and so he entered it.

Darkness met him, it was cold and dark- followed by a blinding flash and a rush of memories that were painful, like explosions in his brain. Brain freeze followed. He gripped his temple as did the girl, her eyes clenched tight trying to fight the pain. He disconnected himself with her and he returned to normal, she however gripped her head still. "You're a telepath?" she winced.

"yes."

"Should have warned me, had some bad experiences as a child, overwhelms most telepaths I've ever met, and believe me I've met a few." Her bright blue eyes were open again and no pain remained from what he could tell, but still she massaged her temple.

"Let's do this the old fashioned way shall we?" He smiled and this time she did return it. "What is your name, what do you like to be called?" 

"My full name is Elizabeth Windsor. My… My…" She paused, unsure of how to term it, she wanted to say friends but it didn't seem right. "People who know me call me Lizzie" she finally said.

"I see." Said Xavier sadly. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you get away from Mr Thompson and Storm?" 

She smiled wily. "I used my power."

"And what is that Power Lizzie?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." She grinned.

"How long will this take?" Sighed Thompson impatiently as he stirred his tea. He had been waiting for half an hour and was still only halfway through his first cup, which was stone cold by now. 

"I don't know. It normally doesn't take this long." Storm looked at her watch. It normally didn't, two minutes and the Professor exited and pronounced if the child was to become a pupil or not. This had to be a tricky case, either that or the girl Elizabeth didn't want to co-operate. From the girls actions earlier she would hazard the Latter would be truer than the former. 

"Would you like another cup of tea Mr Thompson?" She put on her best fake smile. The man had been cautiously asking questions for all the time the girl had been inside. Questions about the types of mutants attending the school, the lay out, security. Questions she had never heard a guardian ask before, not that they got many guardians dropping in to see where the child would be going to school. Most wanted to get rid of their charge at the first chance they got. Sad, thought Storm, but true. The way the mutants were treated by the rest of humanity, it was cruel and torturous- she feared them because of it. This man sitting before her was normal- a threat- and she was uneasy but she could sense the same from him. He obviously was one of those humans who accepted them but still feared. That was the most dangerous kind of human, because a scared human would attack a threat that didn't exist simply because of that fear. 

The door creaked open before the man could answer. Elizabeth strolled out beside Professor X's wheelchair, she was beaming from ear to ear as was he. 

"Mr Thompson we would be honoured to accept Miss Windsor to the academy."

Thompson looked from the girl to Xavier then back- he didn't seem as happy. 

"Right, well, I'll make the arrangements for all her effects to be brought here. She has some of her belongings with her that should suffice until the rest arrive. I believe her father will have to sign a document of some kind?" He ventured not taking his eyes off of Elizabeth.

""Technically not, Mr Thompson. Legally, as Elizabeth is 19, she is an adult and can sign herself into the care of the academy, which she has done." Xavier nodded to the girl but she just stared back at her former guardian. Their eyes were frozen, locked together as each contemplated the enormity of their situation. 

"Well if that is the case," Finally Thompson broke the silence, "Then there is nothing left for me to do." He stood, still looking Elizabeth straight in the eye, and offered his hand to the young woman. "Good bye Elizabeth." She broke eye contact and looked down at his outstretched hand before removing her hand from her pocket and taking it. "Good bye Mr Thompson, Give my father my love." 

"You know I will." Finally he let go and started his way down the corridor before pausing at the corner. "I hope to see you soon, Lizzie." And then he was gone.

The class was quite loud for seven students but the noise they were creating was almost deafening. Waiting for their new teachers they were trying to discover things about each other.

These were the new intake. 7 misfits that had found shelter at the school.  

      Elizabeth included.

      She sat at a desk in the centre of the classroom, if it could be called that, it was more of an arboretum. The sun shone down on the class of vastly different people, and Elizabeth wished she could forgo the experience of a class and lay outside under the shade of the trees and soak up the sun. No matter how much she wanted to have a class her desire for the light outside was greater.

The woman who called herself Storm stood at the front of the classroom preparing herself to talk to them, as was the head master and a few various other people who, she guessed were the teachers. 

"Right, hello." The white haired woman smiled as she perched herself on the edge of the desk the light flowing in from all around her. "You probably all know who I am, and who Professor X is by now- but we all wanted for you to meet us all and learn a little about us…"

One teacher shook his head adamantly, it was the one with the throwing knifes. The man to his right, the man in sunglasses, seconded him. 

"Okkkay." She said keeping the smile but getting a little frustrated. "Let's turn this around. How about you? How about we find out more about you and who you are."

The class shifted a little bit nervously they looked at each other and broke eye contact immediately as if hiding some guilty secret.

"Now come along, I know that some of you have been here longer than others but let me reiterate, no one here will judge you on your powers or the fact you are different because you are just as different as they are."

The group took a collective breath to calm themselves.

"Would anyone be brave enough to start us off? Just say something about your powers and yourself." The professor added from where he was sitting.

"Can we use out codenames?" One girl towards the back called out.

"Certainly. If you think you're ready."

Elizabeth raised her hand confused and embarrassed. The professor nodded in recognition, granting her the floor.

"What's this about codenames, I think I missed that lesson."

The professor and Storm both smiled amused. 

"I have no doubt you did, Miss Windsor." He agreed. "Codenames are what we Mutants take when we feel we are ready to accept and acknowledge our powers and gifts. Only the individual mutant knows when they are ready to do that and what form their codename should take."

"Storm." Storm spoke softly as if remembering.

"Cyclops" The man with the sunglasses smiled.

"Wolverine" The man with the muttonchops who had thrown the knives said.

"Nightcrawler." The blue skinned mutant added finally. 

Elizabeth committed each to memory. 

"These are my X men, your teachers- and when I think I have taught you as much as I can you will make the choice whether to join us or leave and enter the world in control of your powers and in full knowledge of who you are."

The group again looked in on it's self, strangers connecting on some level.

"Some of you will have already decided to abandon your name and accept your code name, due to your advanced ages." Elizabeth could feel his gaze on her but she chose to ignore it. 

The girl who had asked about the use of codenames stood up and the class turned to face her. 

She was wearing a black top that was close fitting and a pair of black trousers. A sleeveless green ripped vest hung open over her shoulders, it matched her green eyes, which stood out against her coffee skin. Her black hair hung in waves and swirls around her face with streaks of light brown highlighting it.

She wrung her hands in front of her with nerves. "Hi!" she squeaked in an excited voice before coughing to calm herself. "My names Nala, I'm 18, and I'm going to be called Digital and…" She dropped her voice as if telling a secret, which was a marked difference from the normal level of her voice "… I'm a mutant." She nodded solemnly causing the class to giggle. 

Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief at the joker confessing to the class that she had always been one and that it had something to do with her jeans but she hadn't worn them since and she still had her powers. 

"What can I do?" The girl repeated after a heckle from the sour looking Wolverine. "I can mess up computers, I touch their screen they suck me in I zap around in their hard drive and when I come out I know everything that's on their computer- all the info in their files, even if they've got it stored on there their credit card details." She paused before looking proud "You know that crate of viagra that got sent to Bill Gates from his own credit card- Me!" She nodded pleased. 

"Anything else?" The boy sitting next to Lizzie asked, pretending to be bored, which put of the comedian. "Yeah, I can travel through phone lines as long as their connected to a modem, which cuts down on the cost of transport no end."

"Thanks. Who's next?" Asked professor X as Digital returned to her seat. "Perhaps you Mr Crowley?" 

The young man feigning boredom next to her unhappily stood up. He was chewing a toothpick in a macho way, with his hands in the pockets of his red jacket. He was Latino and had bleached blonde hair.

"My name is Jack Crowley, 19, but you can call me Firefly." He said passed the toothpick as he turned it over in his mouth. "I don't really have much of a power. I can make my skin glow green, it tends to distract people, screws up their senses. Any questions?" When none were forthcoming he sat down promptly, trying to look tough, but almost swallowed the toothpick. He spluttered gasping for air until the man sitting next to him patted him sharply on the back. 

"Thanks Man" Firefly muttered looking embarrassed as the class smiled on the verge of laughter. 

The man who had saved him stood up. His black hair flopped into his eyes and he pushed it away with his hand. He was wearing what any man of his age on the street would be wearing; a black pair of jeans and a metalica t-shirt. He smiled at the class. "Michael Keaney, 20, But I'm Fear to all my mates." He smiled, "Cause I don't need it!" He put his hand down on the desk in front of Digital who looked on spell bound as he picked up her pencil and with as much force as he could muster brought it down point first onto his hand. There was a sharp squelch that Elizabeth had never heard before. Fear brought up his hand, half the pencil was on one side, half was sticking through the skin with a few drops of blood on its point. The class groaned in union, Digital who had been up close to the scene had turned a shade of green deeper than her eyes. But hat wasn't where it ended. Fear reached up and slid the pencil from his hand with another squelch, making Digital turn an even brighter green. 

"Please stop doing that…" the girl said queasily. The boy could only laugh. "Doing what?" He asked as he held his palm out in front of him for everyone to see. There was nothing, no hole, no blood nothing to say that there had been a pencil stuck in his hand at all. Elizabeth and the rest all looked astonished.

"It's been done…" One of the teachers moaned only to have professor X shut him up. 

The boy sat himself down and another person took his place. This ones mutation was a little more pronounced. Her skin was a silvery blue, her huge eyes were purple, and her hair had shades of green. She wore a pink halter neck and a pair of blue stonewashed jeans. She smiled self-consciously.

"Yeah I know, I'm a fish." She nodded.

"The name was… she halted before shaking her head and continuing, "That's in the past, my name now is Aqua. And as well as breathing underwater I can well it's embarrassing…" she looked down at the floor.

"Don't be embarrassed." Firefly smiled dropping his macho boy act altogether now he had the toothpick out of his throat. 

She looked up happily now as her eyes sparkled. "I can make bubbles…"

"So can I. In the bath when I've had beans for dinner." Digital interjected, the group laughed, relieving the tension.

Aqua giggled a funny kind of laugh, kind of like the sound Dolphins made. Then she continued.

"But from what I know they contain some kind of gas. It makes people faint… its kind of like tear gas."

"You produce it naturally?" Fear asked. 

Aqua nodded nervously, unsure of what reaction she would get.

"All right!" He nodded in admiration. "If I could choose I'd love that."

The woman more comfortable now sat and another took her place. 

She was tall, but only because of the huge boots on her feet that almost doubled the girl's height. She was a Goth. Her skin was pale almost white, by make up not her powers. Her hair was in a pigtail on the top of her head, black with red at the bottom for about an inch. Her purple and black clothing was ripped stylishly and there was the glint of metal belt buckles and the like from underneath. Over the top of the ensemble was a crocheted purple woollen coat that fell all of the way to the floor, even passed he boots. 

"My names Connie Berth but my codenames Obsidian." She smiled under all the make up. "Storm gave me the name, because of the way I dress I guess." The white haired teacher just nodded and returned the attention to the girl standing. 

"I can make rooms go dark for a short time. Even it the lights on or its sunny outside you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face. Its not as cool as some your powers but… well lets just say I've become a little attached to it."

Almost everyone in the room had stood and told the rest about their powers but one girl still had not. 

Storm and Professor X, Kurt and Logan were all sitting expectantly for her to stand and reveal how she had escaped. All were a little perplexed and enthralled by her mystery, but they all wanted it to come to a quick end. 

The woman sat listening to the rest of her classmates until it was her turn. As the final classmate finished though the bell rang for the end of class. They all stood to leave, but Storm called them all back.

"Guys there's still one person to go. I know it's the end of the day but maybe we should listen to her before we go so we can get on tomorrow." The class sat back down and waited for the next mutant to stand…

However she didn't.

"Elizabeth?" Storm looked around the desks and realised that the girl had gone again. 

"That damn kid… where's she gone now?"

"I would tell you. But I am afraid I cannot read her mind for fear of overwhelming her. I believe this girl holds more secrets than she will care to confess to us." Professor X shook his head sadly. 

"She may not to you bub, but she might to me." Logan said before stomping out of the class and letting his claws slide out of his arms, slowly savouring the thought of what he'd like to do to the girl who had made them all look like fools… again.

**Do the shake and vac and put the freshness back, the shake and vac and put the freshness back. But before you do please review. Thanks!**


	4. Elizabeth 'an Rogue

**      Misfit- Chapter 4**

**      Disclaimer- Again I own nothing, zip, nada, squat. It all went in the divorce. **

**      Anything but ordinary3: But you've never been married?**

      Oracles Maiden: well, ok I haven't been married but I still own nothing. Well except Lizzie. 

**      Anything but Ordinary3: Oracle!**

**      Oracles Maiden: Ok she owns herself, and wandered fully fledged into my mind. **

**      Notes- Ok So thanks again to Anything but Ordinary3, check out Retribution X and the stories of our associates and reviewers ****ncsgirl, ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer****. Oh PS. I don't condone underage drinking in clubs, so don't kill me. After all it's a personal choice**

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In the sunshine that had been calling her all afternoon Lizzie finally felt at peace. It was the light that always comforted her… she couldn't understand how people could find solace in the dark. The dark was cold- it enveloped you and you disappeared, the light made others see you and let you see. But there was something deeper than that to why Elizabeth liked the light- she just didn't like to think of it, it made her have nightmares… Just like telepaths did. 

      So now with the thoughts of the lesson and having to tell everyone what she could do out of her mind she could relax… and that meant only one thing. The Elizabethans. She reached into one of the big pockets of her jacket, well to tell the truth it was one of her fathers, she'd just commandeered it. The pocket contained a pair of tinted sunglasses and a paper backed history book.

The one thing Lizzie didn't like about the Americans was that they had no sense of where they came from. American history was in black and white compared to English history- the blood of the civil war, the sweat of the industrial revolution, the Celts in their tartan, the Elizabethans in their jewels. That was Lizzie's favourite because it had given her her name, that's why she read it. Plus she'd read most of the other books on history she owned. 

She sat on the grass, her back against a tree, sunglasses perched on her nose as she started to read about how Elizabeth the first had burnt the Catholics and saved the protestants that her sister had burned before her rise to the throne. Lizzie knew all this already though- History was the one lesson she listened religiously to. 

The sound of the other students in the background made rather a big distraction to her reading, but she couldn't stop their fun, nor could she stop them making sounds… well she could but it was too much work for a lazy afternoon. 

Rogue and Bobby were just as happy about the beautiful day they were having. The day was finished now that the final lesson was done and neither could be bothered to think about homework on a glorious day like this. 

"Wanna try and wrestle the intake for the foosball?" Bobby asked, and Rogue shot him a disappointed look.

"You really wanna be inside on a day like today?"

"Rogue no offence intended but you're gonna die in this heat in those clothes. At least if you're inside then there's the air conditioning."

"I like being outside Bobby!"

"Well can't you take off your gloves or…" He reached to them attempting to remove any clothing that he considered too much for this weather…

"Bobby don't…" She warned. "I don't want any accidents." She pulled her gloves up a little higher, ignoring the beads of perspiration appearing on her upper arms.

Truth be told since the incidents of Alkali lake Rogue and Bobby had had a strained relationship at best. Most of the X men had changed but all tried to get on with life like normal. But it wasn't. Not without Jean.

"Look, I'm going to go inside. If you want to join me I'll be in the rec room."

The two glared as they parted, Bobby to the Rec room and Rogue deeper into the gardens. She paused for a second watching the boys playing basketball again. Colossus was monopolising the game because of his size while the other players ran around him like insects. 

The boy with the cards from earlier, what was his name thought Rogue… Remy that was it, he was back sitting in the tree firing his ammunition at the small stone wall, watching it crumble away and fall with each explosion. She watched as his face crumpled into a smile with each stone that fell… he was fascinating. 

Then her attention was grabbed by a figure by one of the trees. A woman in sunglasses positioned so that the branches of the tree parted and light fell onto her body propped against the trees sturdy trunk. As hair fell over her face with the slight movements of her head she pushed it back with her hand not looking up from the pages of the book she was reading. 

Rogue decided to go talk to the new girl, hoping that she might help with the girl's loneliness. 

As she got closer she saw the girl glance up more frequently, until as she stood over her she was staring up at her.

"Hi." Rogue Smiled.

"Hello." The girl smiled, then turned back to her book. 

Rogue wasn't discouraged "My names Rogue…" The girl didn't bat an eye. "What's yours?"

She looked up, over her sunglasses… "Elizabeth." She replied matter-a-factly.

"You been here long?" Rogue asked, taking a seat beside her, and trying to keep her attention with eye contact.

"'Bout 4 hours."

"You taken your things to your dorm yet?"

"Yep." Now she turned back to her book again. This time Rogue realised the key to the girl was in the book.

"The Elizabethans?" Rogue looked at her strangely "On a day like this your reading a school book?" 

The girl turned and placed the book finally down after dog-earing a page to return to.

"It's not a school book. It's my own. I like history- especially this period."

"Why this one?" Rogue picked it up and flicked through the pages, various sketched pictures every few pages, here and there a photograph or print of a portrait of an important person. 

"Hell this is when it all happened. The Spanish armada, the discovery of Australia. Everything" The excitement was sparkling in her eyes. "Plus no one ever does it very much in history. It's all world war one this, world war two that. This is what people should be learning." 

"You really like this don't you?" Rogue asked genuinely surprised that she hadn't found a comic book stashed between the pages. 

"'Time moves on every second, it's only through history we remember those seconds.' My History teacher used to tell me it and I guess I took it to heart." She paused.

"Rogue, huh?" She looked fascinated by her white streak, "I guess that's your 'Codename'" She made quotation marks with her fingers around the word codename, her clear painted fingernails sparkling in the light as she did so. 

"Yeah." She smiled in return as the other woman shook her head in disbelief.

"You buy into all this 'Mutants take codenames when we are ready to accept our powers.' Bullshit."

"Its not Bullshit." Rogue leapt forward to defend the ideal. "Its right, we have to accept ourselves as mutants…"

"So we take on a name with some kind of cryptic significance? Sorry I don't buy into that."

Rogue and Elizabeth sat in an uncomfortable silence for a second before Elizabeth broke it.

"So what do you do? Why Rogue?" 

Rogue shrugged "I just liked it." 

"It's got nothing to do with your powers?"

"Not really."

"So what do you do?" she asked, perplexed. 

"I can take other peoples powers, but only for short periods."

The girl looked at her unsure. "Really. So you could take my powers for a short time and I wouldn't have them?"

Rogue shook her head. "No. You'd still have them, but… it's difficult to explain."

The girl sat patiently as Rogue tried to think of words that clarified what happened. 

"I take peoples powers by contact with my skin but it sucks the life literally out of a person. I don't just take their powers I take their memories- sometimes even physical appearance." 

She looked at her with a strange expression, it wasn't fear it wasn't pity more a mix of the two… and a hint of understanding. "It must be lonely… not being able to touch anybody."

"I can't even touch my boyfriend, I kissed him once… he almost lost consciousness. The first boy I ever kisses was in a coma for a while, doesn't really make you very secure about yourself."

Elizabeth stared in thought. "I bet it doesn't. Hell if I kissed a boy though my dad would make him unconscious as well, of course he'd do it the old fashioned way." 

Rogue laughed, causing the other woman to smile at the results. "I haven't seen that much about here. Only the intake tend to laugh… teachers aren't that funny. Need a humour injection."

Rogue stopped laughing abruptly, guilty. Elizabeth noticed. "Did I say the wrong thing? I'm sorry if I did…"

"No don't worry its not your fault." Rogue said, "its just… we lost one of the teachers, one of professor X's first pupils a little while ago. No ones really over it yet."

"Oh I'm sorry." And Elizabeth really seamed it, instead of those who said it just as a way of getting out of a hairy situation. Then she hesitated before finally asking… "How? If you don't mind me asking…"

Rogue took a breath. "These guys attacked the school, took a bunch of the pupils prisoner… the teachers rescued them but on the way out the jet wouldn't work…"

"Jet?" Elizabeth asked in shock.

"Yeah we have a jet." Rogue answered casually before returning to the story. "It wouldn't take off and this dam had burst so we were going to be under the water any second, but Jean went out and levitated us above the water… but she died doing it." Rogue just looked blank, reliving the details in her head.

"She must have been a brave woman to do that." Elizabeth comforted

"She was."

Again another silence was held but this one lighter… more comfortable than the last as rogue thought back on Jean Grey and Elizabeth mulled over the fact that the school had a jet. Until their peace was shattered. 

During the talk about Jean neither had seen the approaching man with metal claws striding across the basketball court and towards them. Neither had seen the anger in his face of walk and the grunts of rage that echoed in his throat. When they did it was too late for Lizzie. He had snuck behind her and grabbed the back of her jacket and hauled her up against the bark of the tree, his claws held up to her neck. 

"What in the hell do you think you're doin' out here, lady." The fear had knocked all the oxygen from her lungs and she struggled to answer without hyperventilating.

"Thought… the… lesson was… over…" 

"Logan what are you doing?" Screamed Rogue at her friend who had the girl suspended half a foot off the floor.

"Making this little anarchist, a new breathing hole."

"What for?" she asked staying as far back from Logan as she could, she didn't want to antagonise him more.

"This kid walked out on her lesson."

"I was there for the whole of it…" Elizabeth protested now having got a little more air.

"But you didn't take part." Logan growled.

"You can't force me to show my powers off like some circus freak you know. I thought that was the point for this place, no ones strange here- isn't that what your professor said?" 

"Logan she's right, you can't just force her to perform on cue for you, just cause you wanna know."

When Rogue said this Logan softened a little and dropped the girl back to her feet taking his claws away from her neck as he did so. He remembered having to show off his powers on demand to make a couple of dollars to get by. He'd hated it, but it had at least been his choice. He couldn't force her to do it.

She rubbed her neck as though it was sore. Then leaned down for her book. "Thanks Rogue." She said patting her on the shoulder before turning and glaring at Logan who returned the compliment. 

"You'd better not get on the wrong side of me again girl."

"Don't worry… I won't." She said before turning on her heel and walking back across the court and off into the mansion. 

"I don't like her…" Logan snarled at Rogue, who smiled.

"Looks like she got under your skin Logan." Rogue moved off towards the house too then stopped and turned back quickly.

"Did you see that?" She indicated at the mansions gates that were not too far away. There was nothing where she pointed.

"Your eyes must be playing tricks on you. There's nothing there."

Rogue was adamant. "I'm sure I saw something moving."

After a seconds more watching, she shook her head and moved off. However Logan remained for a second more. He hadn't wanted to worry Rogue but her was sure he had just seen a man in black hide in the shadow of the wall again. She hadn't seen it, her eyes weren't as good as his.

He didn't make any indication that the guy had given the game away just made a note that he should investigate when the man would not be expecting him to. 

That night might be a good time. 

Lizzie had climbed the stairs to her new home from home, the dorm she was to share with Digit, Aqua and Obsidian. The four beds were all laid out against the wall, one had a window above it- that was Lizzie's by choice. 

There was a dress length mirror covered in stickers so that hardly any of the surface was showing. A vanity was there two, covered in all sorts of magical potions designed to make them more attractive to the opposite sex, or in Obsidians case hide her features under a layer of white foundation. 

There was also a huge wardrobe into which they had all slung their clothes. Beside each bed there was a bedside table, Lizzie's was more cluttered than the others because unlike the rest she actually had personal affects that she had been able to bring with her. To runaways she guessed there was more important things than the people who shunned you. 

"Look if you're ever in the city, there's only one place to go…" Obsidian was telling the girls as she made her bed as Lizzie entered and settled on hers. "Go to Le Bar Bat. My uncle Runs it. Tell the guy behind the bar my name and he'll serve you even if you are under age."

Lizzie unpacked her nightgown and slid into it, the effects of the jetlag finally getting to her. Then she slid in between the covers as the girls closed the curtains in compassion and slipped out of the room. The last thing Lizzie heard before succumbing to exhaustion was Obsidian explaining to the Girls that she wished that she could be there tonight, because one of her favourite gothic bands would be playing and she had always wanted to hear them live. Lizzie had, but she couldn't tell her because the second she remembered she was also fast asleep.  

**All together now, Re-View, Re-View, Re-view. Thank-you!**


	5. A dream

**Misfit- Chapter 5**

**      Disclaimer- Ok I own Lizzie, Her daddy dearest and the mutants you've never heard of before and that Marvel haven't either. If they do not fill the above criteria then they are not mine and Marvel own them, I am just borrowing and am making no money. I wish I was but that's not the point. **

**      Notes- Anything but Ordinary3 best friend and god, thanks always. Retribution X is still one of the greatest stories out there so read them. ****Ncsgirl for your kind words thanks, believe me I appreciate it. ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer thank you for the reviews of previous pieces of work. These encourage me to write and to write more. So thanks. **

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The darkness, the bright flashes… memories forgotten returned. Pain thought healed ripping through your heart and veins again; fresh as the time you felt it first.

      The car… Twisted metal. The rose… left behind. The police… Standing helplessly by, Unmoving like statues. Time frozen in the mirror of the dream world.

      Elizabeth the elder, stood amongst the devastation. She stood behind herself; Elizabeth the younger, an eight year old, her mousy hair piled on top of her head, clutching a rose as the wind howled by and the rain poured down. 

      "Where's mummy?" the younger girl asked innocently, but her mouth didn't move because she was not talking. She wasn't thinking it either. Instead it was an echo from the time before this frozen moment, this eternal instant. In the box, in the dark, she had asked her father where her mother had gone.

      "Headache darling, she went home. She'll be waiting for us." Came the voice of her father, cutting through the air. He wasn't there either- just another echo. His words were simple enough, but now they were stained with a thousand tears. Her mother wasn't waiting when they got home. 

      "You enjoyed that didn't you?" His voice asked again.

      In unison, both versions of Elizabeth nodded while still looking at what lay in front of them. 

      "There's some police up ahead sir, looks like the roads closed." Taylor, their driver announced through the blackened window. that's how she remembered it, but had it been through the intercom- was there even an intercom in the limo? It didn't matter because she didn't see it, she just heard the words instead. 

      "Sir, they say there's been an accident up ahead but their gonna let up go through. Just don't look out the windows, apparently its pretty bad…"

      Twisted metal, two cars becoming one, a fatal union. 

      Mother…

      The black limo, our cars twin.

Mother…

"That's my wife's car."

Mother…?

Everything stopping, the world crashing down. Running from the limo to this spot, the place that haunts one forever.

Mother… Mummy…?

"Wake up mummy…" Her neck at a strange angle, blood covering the front of her gown, glass embedded in soft flesh… Closed casket.

She can't be dead though… she's MY mummy.

"Elizabeth… get away from there!!"

"But I want to see mummy, wake up mummy…"

But she didn't and never would.

"Dad, what's wrong with mummy?"

She's dead… the older Elizabeth stared at the younger, still clutching her rose, as she was dragged away- lifted and carried over daddies shoulder, still looking back and crying. The elder however stood clutching an identical rose, lifting it to her nose as the scene changed around her; to the open grave, the earth the Father and her own had thrown. She lifted the rose again, this time it was rotting, maggots crawling from in between the petals. Finally she threw it into the ground… 

Ending her nightmare…

Elizabeth leapt up in bed as the nightmare ended. A cold sweat poured from her forehead as she sat gasping for breath.

"Damn telepaths, why do they always have to meddle where they aren't wanted." She whispered quietly trying not to disturb her roommates. 

She checked her gold, heart-shaped watch for the time… just coming up for 10. Why was she always the first one asleep?

Well her dream made her not want to go back to sleep, and she could feel the acid in her stomach swirling and gurgling around. She needed food and now before she woke up the entire academy. So slowly she slipped out of the door. 

 Storm silently slipped down the stairs in a half daze; She'd had the dream again. She had it almost every night since Jean had… 

She needed something to drink, someone to talk to, anything- she just didn't want to go back to sleep.

She heard a crash in the kitchen and decided she should investigate. 

"Damn it, who'd put a saucepan there!" A girls voice exclaimed and a scraping could be heard as she forced it back into place.

Storm reached the door and peeped round the edge. Standing by the fridge was the little anarchist as Logan had put it. 

Elizabeth stood in the doorway of the fridge looking puzzled before removing a family sized bag of Doritos from it. 

"Why the hell would a sane person keep crisps in the fridge?" she asked herself quietly.

"Because no one looks there for them…" Storm spoke up stepping into the doorway, pulling herself up to her full height to look imposing.       

The Girl leapt into the air about three feet and went into a fighting stance before realising who she was facing. She quickly changed into the respectable ramrod straight-backed girl that had been in Xavier's office earlier. Then she softened it a bit.  

"Core blimy, don't do that again." Lizzie smiled recovering from the shock. Storm just stood by the doorframe watching the girl as she tried to conceal the bag of chips behind her back.

      "What are you doing up?" the teacher asked, trying to sound as stern as she could, but inside she was glad that someone was awake besides herself. Since the attack on the academy some six months before most of the children avoided the halls and downstairs of the academy when the teachers were not around.

      "I couldn't sleep." The younger woman bluffed unsuccessfully. Her cover was fully blown when the timer on the microwave went off with a loud PING. 

      "…And I was a bit hungry." She confessed finally.

      Storm pulled up a stool to the central surface, watching as the girl finally revealed the family size bag of chips and tossed them on to the worktop beside a strawberry milkshake. She glided over to the microwave and pulled a box out containing a middle-sized burger. 

Storm rolled her eyes as the girl settled down in a seat just up from her, "Do you think it's wise eating all that junk food before bed?"

"I need the energy." Came the reply through a mouthful of burger. "I need to keep my energy levels up in case…" she paused looking at Storm for a second before shaking her head and replacing the burger in the box "In case I need to use my powers, it takes a lot of energy to… Do what I do." She wasn't going to give much away Storm realised but she still recognised that the girl was probably telling her more then she had let be know to anyone else- possibly she knew more than Xavier. That was a very strange feeling.

"Does it take a huge amount of energy then… to use your powers?" The girl nodded and resumed eating her dinner. 

"Only when I use them for a lot of time, if I only use them in short sharp bursts then it doesn't. But it takes a lot to use one of them- that one I don't use much." 

"What do you do, Lizzie?" the girl looked annoyed, and threw the remnants of her supper down, Storm however wasn't fazed "Why won't you tell anyone?"

"Because its private. I don't want people I hardly know- no offence intended- knowing my secrets when those people closest to me don't know them." 

"No offence taken, but we can't help you if you don't tell us." Storm looked at her with a little distain. 

The girl paused on her way out the door; she turned back to the teacher for a second "What makes you think I need your help? I've done fine by myself for eleven years, I'll do fine for the rest of my life." She started to walk again. 

"You've deigned your powers for eleven years, when do you ever use them? To sneak away from people, to fight people? What do you do?"

"You keep asking that. I use them plenty." She shot back.

"Really? When was the last time you really used your powers? I mean for something really big?" 

Elizabeth faltered, then finally she moaned "3 months ago." She shuffled her feet in embarrassment. 

"See that wasn't so hard was it?" The older woman smiled at her before reaching for the discarded remains of the burger and taking a bite.

"Hey, I thought you said junk food before bed…"

"I lied." 

Two hours and the two were still sitting in the kitchen, Elizabeth having decided for all its worth that she would stay and learn a little more about what she was getting herself into at "Mutant high".

Storm however was no closer to understanding the enigma that was Lizzie Windsor, every time she asked her a question the girl would counter it by asking one of her own so that the emphasis was taken off of her. It was a masterful trick, and it only reinforced what Storm had learnt already; this girl was bright, very bright.

"So you ever had a boyfriend, or doesn't your power permit that?" Storm questioned sipping her root beer. The question had lead on from Elizabeth telling her how sorry she felt for Rogue and Bobby- never being able to show each other any kind of intimate bond.

"How 'bout you?" Lizzie smiled back, liking the fact that the teacher was getting interested, and that she was holding a little power. 

"I've had boyfriends, powers permit it but telling the man you love you're a mutant is a passion killer." 

"Don't I know it." The younger of the women agreed.

"Ahhhh, so you have had a boyfriend." Storm basked in the glory of her small victory over the other, but she just shook it off.

"I was saying in the metaphorical sense, I know how you feel as a mutant…"

"Don't wriggle out of it, I found something out about you."

"One small thing, that's all. What have you REALLY learnt from that slipped piece of information?"

Storm paused and thought, "That you had a boyfriend," She started to laugh, "That there is a heart beating under that strong exterior."

Elizabeth paused with her bottle halfway to her lips stunned. "You thought I didn't have a heart?" She asked quietly.

Storm realised what a mistake she had made when the saw the anxious, injured look in the girls eyes. She was more sensitive than anyone had though. "No, I didn't. Well… of course you have a heart it's just…"

The girl got up quickly and Storm remembered something from earlier, "Humans have a way of lashing out when they're afraid, or hurt" this sentiment could now be extended to Elizabeth Windsor.

"Don't go back on what you just said. You thought I had no heart. I have just as much heart as everyone else here. Maybe more so"

"I don't doubt that Elizabeth, it's just that… well when other people come here, it stirs up a lot of emotions, and you… well you seem to be taking the transition really well."

"Well." She scoffed, "Me, ha! Storm I'm a mess. I may keep my head when I'm in the public but… I'm lost; I'm alone for the first time in years. I'm supposed to confront my powers and embrace them, but all my life I've been told that… that I shouldn't have them and that I certainly shouldn't use them, for the good of my family and name. Everything's changed in the course of a few hours, and I feel like I'm drowning in it. But I have to keep going, this isn't just going to stop, I have to get on with it. No matter how I feel." The young woman this time made it to the door before looking back at the teacher who stood, a little shaken by what the other had said. 

Elizabeth just gave an incline of her head and a faint glimmer of a smile before turning on her heel and walking out and down the corridor, wiping steadily forming tears from her eyes.

By the time she was halfway to her dorm room, Elizabeth Windsor had given in and let the fear and loneliness she was feeling take full hold of her body. She'd never been alone like this before; there had always been people around her. She'd never let them into her mind or let them see her feelings and now crying in the hall of a strange place was making her even more self-conscious.

She did her little game as she walked, trying to compose herself. Whenever emotion threatened to consume her before to this degree she played a game her father had taught her, a game that protected the world as well as her heart, after all a simple slip with her emotions could cause havoc. As she walked she tried to think of a sentence.

"I'm walking through the hall," she whispered. Now she had to write a song and sing it to herself as she moved.

"I'm crying my heart out." She continued, singing a little melody that she composed herself.

"I wish someone could hear my pain." And she really wished someone could, but there was no one else in the corridor and there wasn't likely to be. It had just turned midnight according to her watch; none of the mutants would be up and about now.

"I'm fighting for my every breath. But wishing it could be my last. But I'll survive. I always survive." She finished as she slowly walked into the dorm. Somehow whenever she played the game the last words of the verse were I always survive. She had enough verses stored in her memory to turn the song into a 3 hour opera. But it was true- she always did survive.

She walked slowly over to the mirror on the wall, stickers covered the edges, each of some pop or rap star that Lizzie had never really heard of, but didn't want to draw attention to the fact. 

Silently she examined her puffy eyes in the reflection as Digital tossed and turned muttering something about sheep and Aqua snored even louder than when Lizzie had left earlier, Obsidian just lay as still as death. The girl in the mirror couldn't be her. For the first time since her mothers death Lizzie's reflection looked worn down and broken and that wasn't how Elizabeth Windsor should have looked. There should have been a spark in her eyes, the mischief she was renowned for the passion she inspired. But there was nothing, her eyes were hollow. 

She needed to be her again. Become the woman she was before she came to this place. Gain some control. There was only one way to do that.

Lizzie checked her watch and did a quick mental sum on how long certain things would take and if it would in the long run be possible. She assured herself it could be done and that it should be, for her own sanities sake. 

A wicked smile that enchanted all that met her crossed her lips and for a second the glow of mischief re-entered her eyes. Tonight she was going to have some fun.           

As Elizabeth prepared and busied herself she didn't notice the eyes watching her, inspecting and noting her every move and every note she hummed from inside her wardrobe, peering through the gap. 

The person, whoever it was, waited until Elizabeth exited fully dressed out of the window and onto the little roof below before raising a walkie-talkie to their lips.

"She's on her way, boss" the man's voice cut through the darkness as he smiled evilly.

The definition of the word review is… oh for gods sake just review while I have another scotch. Please.  


	6. A drive into town

**Misfit- Chapter 6**

**      (Warning to all: The following Disclaimer and Notes were written on a MAJOR Hugh Jackman buzz. Read at your own peril.)**

**      Disclaimer- I make no money from this and my original characters are the only things in it that I own. However if Marvel wish to use them in the next movie I would be happy to allow them to use the for an colossal amount of money and the chance to snog Hugh Jackman. If they wish to use them but do not provide the vast amounts of money required, I'll just take the snog.   **

**      Notes: UMMMMM Hugh Jackman snog… Sorry came over a bit funny there. Um yep. Anything but Ordinary3 keep your hands off my Hugh Jackman and thanks for the encouragement yada yada. Retribution X, which has no Hugh Jackman but is great all the same. Thanks to N****csgirl, who had better keep her mits off Hugh Jackman. ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer**** who are NOT Hugh Jackman for if they were I would not be typing this. I would be attached to their faces. **

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The shadows peaked and wavered around the group collected at the round table. One half of the circle wore white, the other dipped into the shadows of black.

"The operative says she's on her way to the club." One black member announced, a small murmur ran through them like an electric pulse.

"Then we mustn't delay. If we want our plan to be successful we can't make another mistake like the last." A white dressed woman spoke.

"You're right, we can't. That's why I suggest that the black half might have their chance this time and that the incompetence of the white Queen and her men be replaced with the abilities of the black." A man in black answered, this caused a greater stir with the white than the black.

"Wait," Announced the white King. "Seeing as the Black pieces are already in control of this attempt with their operative inside the school I believe it is only fair they have their chance." The Black pieces nodded with pride.

"However…" Continued the white king "If this is unsuccessful the white pieces with take their turn again. Is that agreed?"

The ripple continued, this time of agreement.

The shadowy figure of the black king stood. "We have an agreement. But there will not be another attempt." He smiled smugly. "Because we will claim our prize."   

      Back at the mansion, or more precisely outside a wild animal was out stalking his prey. 

      Logan had finally decided that it was dark enough to leave his spot hiding in the bushes that he'd been in since after dinner that evening. So far however he hadn't caught a glimpse of the men in black- they were better than he'd thought. Their appearance that afternoon must have been a major slip up not a minor mistake. 

      He stalked round the edge of the bushes trying to keep and blend in with the shadows and was, so far succeeding. However he hadn't encountered anything…

      Until now. Up ahead of him, in a black jumpsuit and night vision goggles a man sat in amongst the brush. He was guarding another man, crouching next to a high-tech laptop screen connected to a miniature camera perched atop the wall.

      As Logan had thought… they were some kind of surveillance unit. From who he didn't know… But he sure as hell wanted to find out.

      Slowly, carefully, he approached the men, not a sound was made either by the group or the man stalking them…

      "BAMF" However the Blue mutant who had appeared between the groups wasn't so quiet.

      "Ahhh Logan it's you I thought that there was someone out here…" The mutant smiled chirpily at the growling man crouched in front of him. A man that was not happy. 

      "Is there something wrong?" Kurt asked genuinely puzzled as to why Logan was looking at him like he wanted to rip his throat out. Logan helped him out by glairing over his shoulder to what was behind him. 

      Kurt turned and saw the two men, no longer bothered with their vigil of the computer screen or scouting the area… their main focus were the two men in the bushes. 

      There was a momentary pause as the air hung heavy between them… as they watched for the slightest sign of movement. Then the man with the gun started firing.

      Logan grabbed hold of Kurt and pushed him into the grass and hawthorn that spread beneath their feet, he gave a yelp of fright as Logan stood and surveyed the scene in between barrages.

      When Logan ducked back down though he found his companion was gone, however a blue cloud of smoke remained.

      "Coward." He moaned… just as the men shooting started yelling. Logan looked back up to see that Kurt had re materialised beside the men and was kicking the weapon from the shooters hands.

      The other man however dived for cover, taking the screen with him into a bush of thorns to his left. Security, Logan thought- these men didn't want what was on it being seen. 

      Kurt had succeeded knocking the weapon from the hands of the guard and was now in the process of protecting himself from an onslaught from the man, who was kicking and punching for all his worth. 

      Logan ran forward, Kurt was dealing with the shooter- maybe he could get some information out of the computer guy. He leapt at the bush only to be pushed back by the full force of the man within, both feet square in his chest. This would have floored any other man, the full force of a man's kick to the chest but Logan leapt back almost straight away. This didn't give the man long enough to prepare again and so Logan landed on top of him, winding the other man but not himself. The shrubs and wild plants he was hiding in also took a lot of the brunt. There was a smash as the computer screen broke and glass shattered into both bodies. Logan stood above the unarmed man as he lay helpless and hurt. Logan however was regenerating and healing right before his eyes so this could have had some influence on why the man lay still and stared up through his balaclava. 

      Behind them the shooter finally collapsed after a short fight with Kurt disappearing and reappearing every few seconds to confuse him. 

      Kurt appeared for the last time beside Logan as the man's eyes grew larger. 

Slowly Logan slipped his claws from his arms with a comforting sound as the Adamantium pierced his skin and ran along his bone. 

      "So Stryker's still in operation, huh?" he smiled menacingly down at the man. He shook his head vigorously… "Who the hell's Stryker?" He mumbled through the black mask, unsure. 

      Logan and Kurt exchanged looks, if this wasn't one of Stryker's men then who the hell was watching them?

      Now with the blades to the man's throat, Logan was sure that he wasn't going anywhere so he reached forward and ripped the balaclava off. The man was indistinct… just another buzz cut army guy. 

      "Then who are you with?" Logan barked.

      The man winced, he was trained not to tell. But he had 9 inch blades to his throat and he was beginning to perspire heavily… the man couldn't hold out for long.

      "Come on bub, we ain't got all night."

      Kurt just hovered by his shoulder looking as menacing as he could. 

      Finally the man cracked…

      "Fine just don't kill me!" He whimpered in an English accent. "We're MI6."

      "What the Hell's MI6?" Logan asked, thousands of ideas of what the organisation could be.

      "Secret Intelligence service of England." He again sobbed. Logan scoffed; they weren't so secret now then were they.

      "Then what are you doing here?" Kurt asked, for a second dropping the act, but then jumping back into it, looking sterner and more menacing than ever.

      The man looked at them like this was one secret he wouldn't spill however. So Logan applied a little more pressure raising his hand up to the man's eye level then swiftly sending his arm out to the left. When a tree appeared at knuckle length away, He let the claws out and they sliced through the bark and out the other side. 

      "ahh," The man gasped. 

      "You gonna tell us what you know now?" smiled Logan removing his claws from the tree. 

This was the great decider. "We're watching someone." He gushed.

"Who?" Logan asked pointedly, He'd been expecting to hear that these men and their service had them all under surveillance not just one person.

At that moment the electric Gates of the Academy opened, letting forth a motorbike at great speed. The second it was seen and heard it was gone. 

Logan Stood and looked after it "Who in hell was that?"

"It was Scott's bike if that helps…" Kurt added in what he hoped was a helpful tone. 

However Logan just looked at the grinning idiot, before turning back to the shaking soldier. "Was that anything to do with you?"

The man shook his head.

"It certainly wasn't Scott, he'd never drive that recklessly." Kurt said still looking after the mad person on the bike, who he was sure had been wearing high heels…

"He'd never drive that bike anyway. He just keeps it because it looks pretty." Kurt didn't disagree. 

"We'd better find out who it is though…" He added looking down at the scared computer guy. He desperately wanted to find out who the hell he was watching on his portable screen, but he knew that this was more important. Who ever it was had broken about a million rules of the academy. Plus they had stolen Scott's bike and that made him want to shake their hand.

He leaned down and punched the man, knocking him instantly out. There was a resounding and satisfying pop as the flesh connected with flesh, and that caused Logan to smile. 

"Lets take Scott's car." Logan looked up at Kurt, with an evil smile- glad at the new opportunity to take something of Scott's and possibly wreck it.

 It didn't take long for the driver to reach its destination. Westchester to the heart of Manhattan wasn't all too far. However the driver didn't know Kurt and Logan were in the car tailing just far enough behind to be out of sight.

      They turned into streets, passed crowds of rowdy night owls all looking for a place with cheep drinks and a dance floor that was swinging.

      Finally the driver pulled into a multi-storey car park and locked up the bike before exiting onto the street outside. 

      On the opposite side of the street a queue was formed that went all the way around the block. The source of the queue was a building that had formally been a theatre, its marquee was still there but in blood red dripping letters it proclaimed the building- Le Bar Bat. Fake spiders and their webs hung down too making the entrance look spooky.

      The patrons in the queue were dressed as gothic as they could. A collective of blacks, purples, pinks and reds. At the front of the queue though a burly looking bouncer stood beside a plush velvet rope, letting them in a few at a time. 

      Kurt and Logan watched from the edge of the car park as the rider crossed the street and went straight to the bouncer, whispered in his ear and was let through instantaneously. There was a small groan from some in the crowd, unhappy at the cutter, but most settled down again to wait their turn.

      "Shall we?" Kurt asked. He realised that Logan had probably had the same idea as him. 

      Logan nodded and started across the street. Kurt followed close behind. 

      The bouncer spotted them and didn't give a second glimpse to either, even though Kurt's blue skin and tail were quite obviously showing, and Logan didn't look dressed for a party, especially not a gothic one. 

      Both didn't break stride when they got to the burly man guarding the door, however he did block their way with his body. He put his hand up against Logan's chest to halt him. 

      "Sorry sir, you can't go in yet. Get in the queue and wait your turn." 

      Logan though had no thoughts about getting in the queue.

      "That arm, bub. Move it or loose it." He said, the anger showing in his eyes and voice. 

The bouncer saw it and was for the first time intimidated.

"I…I'm s-s-sorry s-sir, but you'll have to wait like the o-o-others." He stuttered.

"No, bub, you're going to let me in now." He stated, looking into the man's eyes to show him the furry at this hold up. 

The bouncer gulped and moved quickly, letting the men through while whipping a thin sheen of nervous perspiration off his head. 

Kurt halted on the threshold and turned to the crowd and bouncer. "Thank you." He said politely in consolation, before Logan grabbed his arm and pulled him into the club with him.

**Oracles Maiden Enters in a party hat with streamers with a line of retribution X characters dancing in a conga line behind her La-La-La-La-LA! Hugh Jackman! La-La-La-La-LA! Hugh Jackman! Lets all do the Hugh Jackman Conga! La-La-La-La-LA! Hugh Jackman! However before you join the back of the line please review. La-La-La-La-LA! Hugh Jackman!**


	7. Le Bar Bat

**Misfit- Chapter 7**

**Disclaimer- I own nothing that belongs to Marvel, no matter how much I wine or grovel. I also do not own the club "Le Bar Bat" which is based on a real club in New York that I found on the web. I don't know if it's really like this but I nicked the name and came up with a concept. Don't sue.  **

**Notes- Ok standard stuff. To Anything but Ordinary3, thanks a bunch me ol' mucker. Again another shameless plug for Retribution X for anyone who hasn't heard of it. To N****csgirl, thanks for the reviews (and personally I love Alan Cummings too, its just people give me strange looks when I admit it). And all the old hands like ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer who support Retribution and keep two mad review junkies in their fixs. **

**Musical Note- Ok this chapter takes place in a club and has reference to a couple of songs that aren't mentioned by anything other than theme or tone. Being one of those annoying people I'm always intrigued by songs for fics so I thought I'd better mention the songs. They are; Virgin state of mind by K's choice, and Transylvanian Concubine by Rasputina and Marilyn Manson. I was not involved producing either of these songs so please nice people don't kill or sue me.    ** 

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The club was roaring, hot sweating bodies writhed on the dance floor on the lower level. From the upper level, which Kurt and Logan emerged onto, there was a panoramic view of the entire club. 

      Le Bar Bat certainly lived up to expectations given by the crowd outside. Walls and tables were swathed in black, red and purple cloth, fake spider webs hung from the ceiling narrowly avoiding the candelabra's alight everywhere. Above the dance floor, above the balcony of the floor that the mutants were on, hanging below the skylight was webbing holding fake spiders and rubber bats. Le Bar Bat was as gothic as a club got.

      Logan walked to the balcony ignoring the wide-eyed Kurt who was trying to pick spider webs out of his hair and avoid the crowd of young men walking towards him. One of the men, a large man in black netting with black and purple dreadlocks paused beside a nervous Kurt. There was a difference in height of about a foot thanks to the strangers platformed boots. He looked the mutant up and down then sighed, "I wish my make up came out that good." Before moving off down the stairs. 

      Kurt looked bemusedly after them. People never admired the way he looked, but these strange people who worshiped some feral god did. The world was upside down.

      "Kurt, over here" Logan called him over to the balcony and both stood for a second looking out over the crowded floor of dancers and drinkers. The stage held a live band, a cello played a haunting song, accompanied by guitar and drums as a female singer sang her dirge like melody atop it. The dancers moaned along if they knew the words, those that didn't just writhed with more lustre. 

      "What am I looking for?" Kurt finally asked. Logan rolled his eyes and pointed to an area close to the stage where three mildly gothic looking men were writhing particularly close to a woman. Her blonde hair was tied in a top knot on her head with streaks of orange and black flowing through it, thick mascara and make-up mired her face making the woman not easily recognisable, but the thick brown jacket and black trousers both made of leather made certain that she was the one, the motorbike thief. Her face was consumed with the music it swept passed her body as if she was caught in a flood, her hands intimately stroked her chest and abdomen imprisoned in a blood red silk corset fringed with black lace. The woman stopped, looked about her then made for the bar to the side of the floor, shedding her jacket and leaving it on a seat with her helmet. 

      Logan started to make his way towards the rawt-iron stairs at the end of the balcony as Kurt continued to watch the devil woman. After a short conversation with the barman, money was exchanged and she took a large glass of a brown liquid from off the bar. She sipped it lightly, letting her painted black lips leave an imprint on the rim, before heading back to the floor with an excited yelp as the band started another song. There was little difference in the tune or the melody, only a change in the words. Now the words told the tale of how a girl became a vampire, before they were of a woman's decent into madness. The tempo however was a bit slower, more romantic, but Kurt used the term lightly. There was nothing in the club that could be termed romantic. 

      Again the men made a jump, welcoming the devil back into their fold but before they could all resume their writhing, the woman singled one out- a man with a shock of black-blue hair, and less make-up than the others. She took his hand and seductively pulled him deeper onto the dance floor without spilling a drop of drink. 

      Kurt singled out Logan, halfway between the bar and the woman pushing his way through a crowd of startled patrons. The blue mutant looked around him and found that no one really was looking in his direction, couples around him were more interested in sucking one-another's necks in what he presumed was an attempt at gaining immortality like the creatures of the night. Technically though, he thought, you're a creature of the night too. Still with no one looking he took his chance and teleported into the shadows beside the bar where no one was sitting. 

      He made his way passed various demonic looking men and women in the opposite direction of Logan. He would arrive in front of the woman, Logan behind. He watched through the crowd as Logan approached the girl, slowly the Canadian stepped up to the man who was writhing behind her his hands around her waist and tapped him on the shoulder. The man looked a little annoyed but when Wolverine showed his claws the man slipped away with little worry. The she-devil however hadn't noticed her companions' disappearance as her eyes were closed, she hadn't even noticed the absence on his hands around her waist. Now Kurt Wagner saw how Logan had meant his plan to work out. The element of surprise was their greatest asset in a crowded place where their powers would cause hysteria. 

Logan slithered into the place the man had vacated, wrapping his arms around her waist in the same fashion as she danced up against him. He leaned down to her ear, and she smiled feeling the breath against her neck, just as Kurt arrived in front of her. He heard Logan's gruff voice lower and whisper "Imagine seeing you here?". 

The girls eyes opened, blue and tinged with fear. She leapt forward making a break for freedom but Kurt grabbed her, halting her escape. He started to pull her in the direction of the bar, hand over her mouth so she couldn't scream but Logan indicated a door just off the floor, Kurt realised that a more private space would be advisable. The girl wriggled and pulled trying to get away but Kurt was stronger. Everyone around paid no attention, they were to involved in their own lives to look at the struggling she-devil and her attackers. When they finally reached the door, Logan kept look out while Kurt entered and released the girl before entering himself.

The girl crouched, watching them as they closed the door of the cloakroom behind them. 

"What the hell are you doing?!?" She shouted in outrage at them, her accent making her recognisable immediately.

"Elizabeth? Well that explains everything." Wolverine scoffed.

She ran towards him, anger flowing in her every movement. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well I should have thought really. I mean who would disregard every rule the Professor laid down and do it with a smile on her face?"

"Apart from you, you mean?" She spat.

"I think we should get out of here, how long do you think it will be until that boy tells someone you produced claws?" A worried Kurt interjected.

Elizabeth's jaw dropped to the floor "You threatened Danny!" she screamed finally having had enough.

"So you actually found out his name before you pounced on him, huh?"

She looked as though she was going to slap the teacher before Kurt jumped in and held her back, he didn't want to have to take a body back to the academy- and from the anger in Elizabeth's eyes he couldn't guarantee that it would be hers they would have to lay to rest.

"I think it would be prudent to leave, Ja?" he said trying to calm both down.

Elizabeth calmly shook him off, straightening her jacket and pushing her hair back in such a way that he knew she was trying to calm herself down completely. 

"Fine by me" She said pointedly.

Logan backed down, but only slightly. "Lets get going."

They exited into the smoky club again, the heat and smell of sweat hitting them like a wall as they left. 

She started through the crowd. They seemed to part like the red sea in front of her, Kurt and Logan follow behind. Through the din Logan and the young woman continued their argument.

"And what the hell were you drinking?"

"Coke, what do you think." She replied matter-a-factly

"It didn't look like coke. What was it, before I have to make you tell me." He threatened.

Finally she admitted "It was a T.V.R. O.k.?" 

"What the hell is a T.V.R?" A puzzled Logan asked.

"Tequila, Vodka and Red bull. Gives you a sugar rush like hell." She smiled a wicked smile, that made Kurt think his labelling of the young mutant as a She-devil was right all along.

"You're 19, you're not legally old enough to drink" he said grabbing her arm.

She span and looked him in the eye "So shoot me." She smiled again.

Logan was just about to retort when a huge crack was heard. The three mutants looked at each other and then silently and slowly all three tilted their heads skyward. 

In the huge skylight that filled the ceiling there was a crack that spanned from one corner to the other and thousands of other little ones that spider webbed out from the main crack. 

Logan looked to Kurt then Elizabeth, al three had the same thought, one slight blow would cause the entire skylight to fall in on the clubbers.

"What the hell caused that?" Elizabeth finally spoke amazed.

As if in answer the roof gave way under the weight of men's bodies. A thousand splinters of reinforced glass heading towards the screaming patrons below followed an earth shattering smash.

Kurt dived and grabbed Elizabeth's hand, span her into his body and pulled his coat over the both of them for shelter, but after a few seconds nothing happened. Slowly Kurt peered out from underneath, up to the roof. Elizabeth was still in the dark and couldn't see what was happening. 

"Holy mother, it is a miracle." He gasped; Elizabeth clawed at the material and pushed it from her face. Hanging, suspended in the air were all pieces of shattered glass, almost as if someone had frozen time at the very second that they had fallen.

"How the hell's this happened?" Logan asked amazed, looking up in awe. He'd never seen anything like it.

Elizabeth turned to the other people in the club; all stood staring in shock and amazement not thinking that when the glass was released from whatever was holding it, it would fall directly onto them. "Run, Go, Quickly." She urged, and most at that moment came to the realisation that they were in danger. They fled the floor pushing and shoving passed one another on the way. Within seconds the club was deserted except for the three that didn't fear the supernatural. These three stared up at the phenomenon, and finally realised what had caused the glass to break.

Through the layer of glass came three strands of thick black climbing rope, they crashed to the floor around the heroes as they looked up. Suddenly a bright searchlight appeared also, on a black army issue helicopter that now hovered above the building. All three shied away from the bright light after being in the darkened club for a short time. Through the light came shadows, men descending the rope as if abseiling and after them more men and more, until around them there was a circle of dark figures waiting for them to make a move.

"What the hell is going on?" Elizabeth asked scared to death.

"I don't know." Was all that Logan could answer to reassure her, and it was the truth, he didn't have a clue what these men wanted.

Two of the burly looking men in masks ran forward simultaneously grabbing hold of the young woman's arms and began to roughly pull her away to the other side of the circle. She kicked her legs trying to stop them "Get off me." She instructed, thinking in her naive way that the men would simply obey, however they didn't.

Logan started to walk purposefully forward; the purpose was clear in his mind, retrieve the thing he had set out to find. However the masked men were having nothing of it. One rather burly attacker jumped onto the mutant's back, another dived for his knees toppling the giant but only just.

"Kurt," Logan barked from under the men "I'll deal with this, you get Elizabeth." 

"Are you sure you don't need my help?" Kurt asked as the man on Logan's back was catapulted to the floor violently, while the mutant concentrated on the man who had levelled him. 

Logan looked up from the now unconscious man with a wolf-like grin, "I'm sure."

Elizabeth squirmed as the two men pulled her away from the dance floor, wiggling and pushing to loosen their grips on her arms, and dragging her feet to slow their progress though the fact that her shoes had little to no grip on them didn't help her plight. 

She thought back to the training that she had had in her youth, training that had helped her in tricky situations before. Had her instructor given her advise for a situation such as this? She was sure he had, it was just she couldn't remember it in the spur of the moment. Some good the years she'd spent learning it had gone to then.

They approached some tables close to the stairs that lead to the upper level, but as Lizzie was facing the opposite way she didn't know it until she felt her body being lifted up from the floor as she squealed for them to let her go. 

Her back lay against the wood and purple cloth that covered it that moved and slipped with her. One man still had hold of her arms, he had them crossed over her head and held down powerfully at the wrists. She writhed as she had earlier on the dance floor, but now she was writhing for her freedom.

The other man, who had been holding her arm appeared above her. The thought crossed her mind that if she timed it right he would just be in reach of her right foot, if she could kick him in the temple she wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. However the man at her wrists realised how vulnerable they both were. 

"Get on top of her." He directed. The other man nodded and climbed up onto the table straddling her waist. This just made the woman wriggle more. 

"Get the hell away from me!" she yelled as the man leaned closer, seaming to inspect her face in the dim light. 

"She's the one." He informed the other man and let out a little contented laugh through his gold mask. 

It was then Elizabeth realised that the men were here for one reason and one reason only. They had come for her.

The man on top of her continued to laugh as he reached into his belt, producing a small hypodermic filled with an acid yellow liquid. Lizzie kicked her legs, hoping the motion might cause her attacker to drop it but it was to no avail. He sunk the needle into the flesh on her mid-drift where her bodice had slowly worked its way up her form. She screamed hoping someone would come to her aid, but there was no body. The others were still behind a wall of men just like the ones holding her captive. 

"It should work in a minute, then maybe she'll stop squirming and enjoy herself." The man on top breathed heavily as he moved his hand up her form to the top of her corset. It was what Elizabeth had feared, the man had given her a muscle relaxant so that she couldn't fight back… and he had some dirty ideas on what his first course of action would be when it took effect.

He stroked the skin around the top of the silk and lace sensuously, or as sensuously as the pig could- if felt to Lizzie more like a poke. She tried again to force the man at her wrists to let go, but her arms were starting to fall under the effects of whatever drug was now in her system. Her struggle was becoming less and less and she felt like crying, but tears would take up too much energy that she needed for the fight.

Over her a shadow fell, she looked directly up for the first time and saw what was towering over her and her unaware attackers. The blue mutant, Kurt Wagner, was standing just behind the man on the table, in his three fingered hands a vase was raised over his head ready to bring down on the base of the mans skull. She smiled contently as the vase smashed into a thousand pieces and the man slumped forward comatose. The man at her hands was sent crashing to the floor by a swift kick from the teleporting mutant. 

She looked up as he bent over her, pushing the unconscious assailant off of her body.

"Are you O.K?"

"No," she answered "They injected me with something, I can't feel anything." She was using what strength she had to keep her lips under her control. 

"Can you walk?"

Did this man understand a word she was saying? She couldn't move, very few of her muscles were under her body's control anymore, and she prayed that they did, if not it would be very embarrassing. 

She tried to move her lips but they refused to work again. Instead she rolled her head so that it flopped to the side, her cheek connecting with the velvet tablecloth. 

"I believe that means no."

Well duh, she thought as the man jumped down to the floor. He took one of her limp arms and pulled her towards him, she slipped with the tablecloth off the table and into his waiting arms, her other arm falling limply into the air. The two then disappeared with a BAMF and puff of blue smoke, reappearing where Logan and Kurt had stood earlier. He gently lowered her into a chair beside the balcony, gently folding her hands into her lap and propping her head against one of the columns that kept the balcony in place.

There they surveyed the scene below them, the once packed dance floor was now covered with unmoving bodies, many men remained standing in the circle where they had earlier but they didn't move forward, instead they stood and watched the centre – the man and his victim. 

Logan threw the last of the attackers that would face him to the floor and with a savage grunt stuck his claws into the man. If Elizabeth could still move her face muscles she would have winced.

"I'll be back in a minute. Stay here. If anyone try's to attack you… call." He instructed before disappearing with another cloud of smoke. Lizzie coughed in exasperation as she breathed in the smoke that had been the mutant, how could she call if she was being attacked? Git.

She watched, as Kurt appeared next to Wolverine on the floor, grabbed his arm and disappeared within a matter of seconds. The masked men looked around in confusion but didn't see the two reappear on the upper level just beside Elizabeth. Instead they just stood looking around pointlessly like morons. 

"You ok." Asked Logan as he neared her.

Kurt enlightened him, "Those men gave her some kind of drug, she can not speak or walk."

Logan rolled his eyes, then started to pick her up. "I don't mind the not speaking thing, but did they have to make her not be able to walk." 

If she had had the power to Elizabeth Windsor would have kicked him with all her might in the tender-ist spot she could. But not being able to she just lay in Logan's arms as he made towards the exit.

Behind them there was a deafening smash and screams of surprise and pain. Both men turned and ran back to the balcony and watched as the remaining men fell in defeat, glass imbedded in their bodies. Whatever had been keeping the smashed glass from their entrance aloft had finally given in.

"What the hell caused that?" Logan asked his blue skinned companion.

"I do not know, but I do not wish to say to find out" Kurt replied as the two again headed for the door.

If Lizzie had the power to do so, she would have smiled.

High above them on the roof, two others had surveyed the scene of devastation below them. Dressed in their dark robes the men had their faces covered by cowls of capes not the masks of their minions. 

The winds whipped at them as they slowly shook their heads in unison. 

"The Queen won't like this." One solemnly sighed.

"There are more soldiers where they came from."

"I meant the fact that we lost the girl." 

Under the darkness of his hood the other man smiled, "There will be other opportunities, this just makes the chase interesting."


	8. Time well spent

**Misfit- Chapter 8**

**Disclaimer- We're all living in a yellow submarine… a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine… Well… all except Anything but Ordinary3 who lives in a shoe where tiny elves and goblins stare and point at her all day. Also not in my submarine are all those characters who belong to Marvel. No, they live in a more expensive Red Submarine that pulls up next to mine now and again. So don't sue me if they come to visit sometimes Marvel, maybe you should put more air in your submarine!**

**Notes- Ok Anything but Ordinary3. You can come to tea in my submarine… if you bring the tea. Retribution X is still on going to people check it out. N****csgirl's fics are both funny and funny, so might I suggest a little peep at her stuff because she's nice to me? She can also come to tea. And to ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer if they want to the tea pot is still warm. They can come too. But they might have to squeeze in a bit. I don't think my submarine was made for so many people.**

Oh and P.S- Ncsgirl… about Lizzie being a teleporter… you were wrong.   

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When Elizabeth next awoke she found herself in the silver bowels of the X men's base, although she had no idea that that was where she was. 

Her first knowledge of the fact that she was awake was the heavy-duty lights that were above her making the opening of her eyes a labour and not a pleasure. She was glad to discover however that whatever she had been injected with had worn off and given her full control of her body again. Another thing she did dislike however was the fact that someone had stripped her of her clothes from the night before and put her in her nightgown, who she didn't know but wanted to find out.

"Hey, how are you doing?" A soft voice from above asked, then and only then she realised that she was in the presence of someone else, someone else she was glad to see was recognisable. 

"Storm." She sighed in gratitude, "Thank god, I thought that they…"

"Had taken you? No, this is the medical facility under the school. We brought you here when you got back. According to Kurt you passed out about halfway between here and New York." She paused, "We just wanted to make sure that they didn't do anything to you before Logan and Kurt intervened." She added softly.

It was a close call, Lizzie remembered, a few more minutes and… god knew what those bastards would have been doing to her, and if anyone could have stopped them.

But there was a more pressing matter on her mind.

"Is the Professor mad at me?" She queried, unsure if she wanted the response.

Storm sighed, looking at her sadly as she pulled the blanket around her a bit better, to hide the curves she denied having. "Well he's disappointed as are we all." She emphasised "But at the moment he's more concerned in who attacked you and why."

Sadly, Elizabeth sank down into the covers and looked directly above herself again, falling into a world of her own for a second "Don't you see Storm…" She sighed, "They wanted me."

      "I don't understand." Conceded a confused Storm.

      "Don't worry, didn't expect you to." Replied Elizabeth in a daze, before turning to storm again. "Are there showers down here? I really need to get all this make up off." She said reaching for her hair and pulling out two hairgrips attached to orange and black hairpieces that fell like streaks against her blonde hair. 

      Storm directed to a door just a short distance away. She moved forward and helped ease the girl off the metal gurney and pad slowly across the floor to it. 

As the door opened Storm felt compelled to ask… "Logan said some strange things happened inside that club last night, things he'd never seen before. Do you know what caused it?" 

The girl paused on the threshold, wondering about what to say before finally deciding what to do. "No." She answered, shaking her head. She turned as the door started to close behind her, "But I can show you it all over again after I've had my shower."

    In the arboretum an hour later the X men were collected. They sat behind the desks like their students, else on the desks. Logan was the only one standing leaning back against the doorframe. They were waiting, patiently for the arrival of Lizzie and Storm. 

      There was a clatter of heels against the hard wood floor at the distant end of the hall and all those collected turned sharply to see if it was them… it wasn't. 

      "What is taking them so long?" Scott asked exasperatedly to no one. Rogue and Bobby's body language said the same silently. Kurt just sat perched on one of the desks, knees against chest. And Professor X just sat calmly at one of the desks. "They're on their way Scott… they'll be here any…"

The sound of heels again echoed down the hall. This time however a turn wasn't needed… A young woman's voice touched with anxiety echoed with the footfalls. 

"It's Showtime…" Elizabeth said entering in front of Storm and walking straight to the spot where the black board had stood until moved by Logan.

The light from the windows encircled her, just as it had Storm the day before and she looked angelic. She paused, removing her jacket and roughly throwing it to an empty desk letting the light caress her bare shoulders and arms. 

She stood in front of them looking sheepish as they all leaned forward expectantly. None of them could deny that that they were interested in her and her powers- powers that had been used to out fox them and possibly to save them… although that wasn't clear yet. 

She looked over at Logan "That weird stuff that happened last night… the falling glass? That was me." She stated calmly. 

Logan grinned smugly "I knew it."

There was a pause as they all thought about the extent of the power that had been show in the club… what had happened was still uncertain but that the girl had caused it was incredible.

"You're a telepath?" Xavier asked. 

"No." Lizzie denied strenuously, "It not telepathy…"

"Then what?" Scott asked confused, "What else could make shattered glass freeze in midair and just hang there?"

"They didn't just hang in midair, Mr Summers." She smiled formally "I froze them…"

"I don't understand…?" The Professor admitted.

She lest out a small sigh of frustration. "I froze them, right where they fell…" Still no one grasped it, "I froze them in time."

Logan scoffed "Excuse me?"

"I said I froze them in time, its not like I turned them into sugar candy or anything as preposterous as that. So theirs no need to think I'm pulling your leg."

The group just looked at her… what she was saying wasn't as strange as half of the mutants powers that had been demonstrated in these hallowed halls. It was just that after the secrecy and disappearing acts she had performed it was still a little hard to trust her.

"You don't believe me?" She laughed, interpreting their reaction. "What do I have to do to prove it to you people?"

"HEADS UP!!!" Bobby called to her as he threw a ball of solid ice at her. It was about the size of a fist and would have winded anyone it came into contact with… but it didn't come into contact with anyone. Instead she turned quickly and it stopped in its tracks… hanging in midair a yard away from her chest. She just looked at it annoyed and then looked up at Bobby "Nice test." She said walking forward towards the ball and the man who'd thrown it, "Better than some of the ones I've had to go through to prove myself… quite ingenious really." 

Everyone just looked at her, stunned, as she put her hand forward against it, and slowly it started to move again at a fraction of the rate it had been at. She lent on it as it moved at a snails pace forward like a mime on a balloon. Then after a second to let this trick sink in she straightened and plucked the sphere of Ice out of the air, and throwing it to the floor where in real time it smashed into a thousand pieces. 

The group looked on amazed though as each of the pieces hovered as the main sphere had done in the air centimetres above the floor before being left to drop by the girl controlling them. 

"That's only part of what I can do of course… I can do other things too." She smiled calmly as though what she had just done was an everyday occurrence. 

"Like what?" Rogue asked breaking the astonished silence.

"KURT WATCH YOUR…" She burst out with no warning, turning as she did to face the mutant.

A clatter could be heard as Kurts tail connected with a pencil pot and sent the tin rolling off the desk. It froze in midair… pencils half in and out of the pot. 

"Tail." She conceded sadly "Oh well can't win them all."

"How did you know I would hit it?" The German asked in shock.

"Because it happened before." Lizzie smiled before walking letting the contents and pot drop to the floor. She then looked down at the little heart shaped watch that had been hidden by her jacket but now sparkled, "about a minute I think that was…" 

"A minute?" 

"That's how far I went back. After Kurt knocked it off I travelled back in time to when Rogue asked me what else I could do. It's hard to demonstrate that kind of thing… if you can't take the entire room back then only I'll have memories of the minutes that existed before… it's complicated."

Logan stood open mouthed "You can travel through time?"

"Only backwards." Lizzie grinned "and only for about 5 minutes, 5:30 if I push it, but that wares me out." She stared down at her nails bored. 

"five minutes!" The professor exclaimed, shocked. "You can travel in time."

Plus I can…" She paused for a second weighing out her options- hatching a plan. 

She looked up instantly at Rogue… "I don't normally do this but can I demonstrate something on you Rogue? It won't hurt I promise…"

The other woman looked curiously at the younger girl then at her boyfriend…

"It won't hurt you will it? Cause if you touch my skin…" 

"It won't hurt me…" She paused walking a little towards her, "but it'll be a shock for the rest of you… for you especially bobby. You don't have to if you don't…" 

"I want to." Rogue interjected. 

Sadly she looked to the other teachers then looked into Rogues eyes. 

"Say a poem… or a nursery rhyme or something… Something quite short no need for a huge amount just something that springs to mind."

"OK." She paused in thought… "Right…

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do… I'm half crazy all for the love of you… It won't be a stylish marriage… I can't aff…" Suddenly she stopped, halfway through a word- her mouth open her eyes frozen. No movement at all.

"I'm sorry friend." She said sadly. 

"What have you done to her?" Bobby asked, slowly waving his hand before her eyes. Lizzie just frowned. 

"She'd frozen, like the ice ball."

"Can she be un-frozen?" Then man asked.

Lizzie blinked a flash passing through her blue eyes.

"…ord a carriage… but you'll look sweet upon the seat of a…"

"Thanks Rogue, that's enough." Lizzie said patting her on the shoulder. 

Rogue just looked at her blankly "But you haven't done anything yet."

The group looked at one another, like the students the day before. This was amazing. All this power… and she was barely a girl. 

"Well that was an interesting…" Professor X started.

"That's not all I can do." She exclaimed. 

"You can do more?" Storm asked, stunned. 

The girl simply nodded. 

"See, this is the reaction I always get when I show people my powers. They always get like that. What can you do? I show them some bits and they think that's it. Thought you wanted to see the bigger picture."

"We do." Logan rumbled at the back, glaring at her. "Like how you got away from us?" 

She wickedly looked at him, like she was contemplating more mischief. "I will, but I'll show you something better first." She stepped back into the centre. "But I'll need your help Logan." 

He looked at the small girl… he could eat a girl like her for breakfast- with powers like hers or not. There were girls like her at the academy that shivered with fright as they passed him in the hallways this girl however was calling him out for some kind of magic trick. He didn't like it but he wanted to find it out… he just hoped whatever she was going to do, he would have some conscious memory of it. 

As he approached, she dropped into a fighting stance extended her hand signalling for him to attack her.

He just stood puzzled. He could hoist her over his head and snap her in half and she wanted to fight him… in a dress and high heels? He burst out laughing.

She however wasn't in the laughing mood. 

"What you think I can't take you?"

"No I just think you should reconsider doing whatever you're planning with someone that's as weak and defenceless as you. Scott for example." 

From behind his shades Scott shot him a look of pure distain. Logan didn't respond or even notice. 

"Look kid I don't want you getting hurt."

"You know that's not true." She smiled calculatingly. "I know you don't like me Logan. Now's your perfect chance to beat me to a pulp and you're walking away."

Logan returned the smile, but his was of disrespect. "That's exactly why I ain't fightin' ya. I wouldn't be able to control myself."

He turned and walked away… he never in his life though he'd be doing that.

"Why, has the Wolverine been tamed, or has he just forgotten he's got claws?" Then she giggled girlishly. "Or maybe he's been spayed!"

"LOGAN!" Profesor X warned as Logan was filled with anger. The man turned and looked at the girl facing him down. She stood innocently, looking at him with wide eyes, not flinching- instead smiling- when his claws started to emerge from his arms. 

Without a warning Logan ran screaming at the girl who didn't show any sign of concern. He kept running, Claws aimed at were her midsection was… but when he reached her she wasn't there. Instead he kept running and imbedded his claws into a tree that had been directly behind him. 

He turned back to see as he was pulling his claws from the wood, the young girl back in the same spot smiling and waving in provocation. 

"Why you little…" He cracked. 

"Logan, no claws." Warned the Professor, who was watching concerned, yet gripped by what Lizzie was doing.

As per the command, Logan retracted his claws and ran at her again. This time she was gone again, but Logan went crashing to the floor. He turned his head back when his momentum had stopped carrying him forward, crouched on the floor with one leg outstretched into what had been his path the girl smirked. 

"You're gonna pay for that."

"I certainly hope so." She smiled. 

He leapt up and ran again, however she didn't disappear she stood waiting. He went to deliver a punch to her abdomen but found her own hand there clutching his fist. She let go of it. He sent his other hand for an uppercut. Again her hand stopped him before it could do any damage. He punched and fought and kicked but every blow, no matter how fast or full of force he did it was blocked or defended against. 

She was moving faster then he had ever seen. 

Finally as she blocked a punch she got a kick of her own in, she hit him with such force he flew for a second and crashed to the ground. She straightened up and looked down on him as he lay confused- she didn't have that much strength… she couldn't have. 

"Now for my turn." She smiled as she leapt into the air all eyes on her. She arched in the air, turning so that when she landed she'd be facing the mutant, it was acrobatic and graceful and completed with flair. 

"I knew dad paid for those gymnastics lessons for something." She said to herself as Logan picked himself up. "Back for more, Rat man?"

"Wolverine." He grunted.

She shrugged "Same diff." Then she kicked him round the head, her leg completing a full circle and her heel causing a cut to open on his forehead. Instantly she changed from one leg to the other and kicked him square in the gut. He doubled over in pain and she took a step back, running at him and using his back as a vault to post off of. She landed with a flourish worthy of a gold medallist, she then thrust her leg behind her kicking Logan on the ass, sending him back to the floor. 

Logan however wasn't going to let a little girl defeat him. Instantly he was back on his feet throwing punches again she either dodged them or blocked. Then she flipped out of the way and went for another swift kick but Logan caught her boot before it reached his chest. He pulled swiftly and Lizzie went tumbling to the floor, and he leaned in to gloat… but she wasn't there.

"Looking for me Loggie?" Came a voice from high above. The teachers looked up only to find Lizzie sitting in one of the trees eating an apple. She dropped it and before it reached the ground she was gone from her seat on the branch and on the floor ready to catch it, which she did. 

"What in the hell?" He screamed at her as he walked closer, this time however she let herself be grabbed by the waist and thrown by Logan into the air. She flipped as if expecting it and came to rest in a crouching pose. 

She stood smartly smoothing her dress. "That is the end of my demonstration, many thanks to Logan for helping me." She smiled quickly, tossed her apple core underneath one of the trees, rolled her eyes back in her head and fainted.


	9. Edwards End

**Misfit- Chapter 9 **

**Disclaimer- I still own very little. However I can now claim my own muses as property. **

**Mel Muse: Can she legally do that? **

**Lizzie Muse: I don't know, she's the author.**

**Digital Muse: Can I have another slice of Ham please?**

**No. Anyway as I was saying I don't own them so don't sue. **

**Notes- Ok a little warning, there is a little bad language in this chap but it ain't that bad. Anything But Ordinary3 has heard worse (actually she's taught me worse.) N****csgirl bet she doesn't use bad language at all, she's Canadian they don't use rude words. (Maybe I've been watching a little too much Due south.) And to all the Reviewers of Retribution X and this story my eternal thanks.  **

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A blue helicopter flew swiftly away from the shoreline, its blades glinting in the early morning sun. This copter though was different from others that did this act every now and then… because of its cargo.

      Sitting in the bullet-proof, bomb proof ex army copters seats were the highest ranking military men and spin doctors that catered to the King of England's whims. And in amongst them sat Edward IX himself signing documents with a gold plated pen. 

      The king looked briefly over a dispatch from parliament before signing it and handing it to one of the yes men who put it in their briefcase safely. As the king performed this meaningless task another time he looked up and scanned the men for one in particular. 

      "How long till we reach the carrier?" He addressed the man, glancing back down and signing his name before turning the page again to sign a second time. 

      "Around 20 minutes. Although your highness I must point out it would have been quicker and a little more comfortable if you returned to England on a commercial airliner rather than Aircraft carrier." 

      The king smiled as the man finished using what his daughter termed his "Pompous Voice" that he only ever used when addressing the King. To his daughter, the head adviser to the throne used a "Patronising Voice", talking to the princess as though she were a five year old in a place she didn't belong. However his Sunshine was probably more equipped to be at the palace than he was- she actually talked common sense. Plus she wasn't a child anymore, as he had to keep telling himself- she was a young woman.

      He had to admit it, he missed her. He wanted his girl sitting at his side right now but it was the best decision to leave her where she was, she needed to learn he kept telling himself- even though the others said that she didn't. 

      However that didn't ease the heartache. Since her mother had died he had seen his wife's spirit grow in his daughters eyes- she would never be Maria he told himself, but she would always have her mothers greatest qualities; her wit, her kindness and her warm heart. He smiled to himself, then thought to ask.

      "How is her Highness today?" he shot at another man. 

"From intelligence reports, all's fine and dandy sir. She's settling in fine, no need to worry."

He sighed "I always worry. Are you sure she'll be safe with these people?"

"I have my best operatives on it sir… and of course there has been a few incidences but we believe we can guard against other such… um, attacks."

Edward shock his head in amusement, "I heard one of your "Best operatives" Broke five of his ribs in one of those "Few instances"." He looked back at the page still smiling, "A teacher wasn't it?" The other man had turned a bright red and was staring down in embarrassment. 

"Don't worry, it could have happened to the best of us." The king assured. 

Calmness on the helicopter settled- until just after the clock ticked over to 9.00. 

"A violent Explosion racked the Royal helicopter at approximately 9 AM. The helicopter carrying King Edward IX and many of his advisors nose-dived and plunged into the ocean of the Atlantic… moments later another explosion occurred beneath the water, it is thought that this was the result of flames reaching a perforated fuel tank. A full search has been instigated but first indications are that there are no survivors. The palace has been informed and is keeping in constant touch with the American President. The whereabouts of the Princess is yet to be determined." The news continued but Jools didn't stand by to watch with the rest of the staff. His thoughts were in America with a young woman who was now very much alone.     

The world was still spinning when Lizzie came to. Concerned faces swam and fizzed into view and out and a distinct buzzing could be heard, like a bumblebee had found its way into her head and couldn't get back out. 

"Are you OK?" Storm asked propping her up. 

      "I'm fine." Lizzie winced as the light entered her eyes. She couldn't have been unconscious all that along. 

      "What happened?" Professor X asked as he loomed above her, a look of concern on his face.

      She tried to belay his worries with a faint smile, but she thought it might have come out more like a wince. "Nothing I wasn't expecting. Can someone get me my jacket?" She asked exhausted and sure that if she got to her feet she'd end up back in a heap on the floor. 

      Scott was the closest and so ran to the desk where she had thrown it, grabbed it and quickly brought it back, placing it gently on her lap. 

      Now sitting up of her own accord- although extremely light headed- Lizzie searched every pocket until she found what she was looking for. 

      In the lower right hand pocket she found a bar of chocolate and a small bottle of lemonade. She opened the bottle and drank the drink to the dregs in one. Then she ripped open the foil of the chocolate with as much strength as she could taking a huge bite of the brown sweetness as soon as it was open. 

      Logan just looked down with loathing at the girl… scoffing the chocolate as fast as she could. 

      "Pig." He said. The girl looked up, chocolate staining her lips, and glared. 

      "I fainted 'cause I needed energy. High sugar foods are the best way to get the energy I need for time manipulation." Now she sounded stronger, as though the sugar had an instant reaction. 

      Logan scoffed, "That's still no reason to eat it like a pig."

      She just glowered at him. 

      She sat for a second more on the floor, before asking for a hand up, which she was duly given. She smoothed down her dress again and chucked the jacket back around her shoulders. Then she turned to the assembled X men. 

      "What did you think?" She asked with a hint of worry in her voice for the first time since entering.

      The group turned to their leader… the professor sat looking at her sadly. 

      "There is nothing I can do for you…" 

      Lizzie grimaced and turned away, not wanting to meet his gaze.

      "You already know so much, there's very little I can teach you about your powers… except maybe to use them responsibly."

      With sadness in her voice Lizzie turned back, "I doubt you can Professor. I've studied Ethics and Physics since the day I found these powers. There's nothing more anyone can teach me about that side of the equation." She sat on a desk, looking over at the trees and flowers not daring to look back at the teachers.

      "There must be something you can do professor?" Storm pleaded for her.

      There was a pause… 

      "There is… it's highly unusual of course but, what isn't." 

      "What is?" Lizzie said not letting any hope that this man could help her into her mind. 

      He eyed her then the rest of the teachers, "It would however be your choice…"

      Storm and Scott looked at him almost as if they knew what was coming… they just wanted to be sure it was. 

      "When students here have learnt all they can they are presented with a choice Lizzie. They can either go back to the world outside these walls knowing what they can do and how to control themselves or…" He looked her dead in the eye, "or they may stay here… become an X man. Teach and protect mutants like yourself." He smiled "I don't wish to push you but you would make a rather incredible member of the team."

      She looked at them all, looking from face to smiling face, each set of eyes asking her to make the choice… but she…

      "I'm not ready to, make the choice that is, or be a member of your team." She found herself saying. "You said that mutants have to comfortable with who they are… that they are mutants. I'm not."

      Xavier smiled at her "You seemed very comfortable demonstrating your skills on Logan."

      "Hey…" Logan growled.

      The professor turned in his wheelchair "Well she did."

      Lizzie just sat and thought for a second, it had been good. She'd always loved using her powers, having that advantage but… it was too much of a risk. She couldn't let them rule her life. Something else would always rule that for her… she was just about to open her mouth again to say no when a feeling rapped around her gut… it might have been a reaction to her fainting, but it felt familiar… the feeling she'd had the night, that night, the night fate and her mother collided in a black Limousine. Something was wrong, she just knew… Sixth sense. 

      "The invitation will always be there, promise me you'll at least think about it…" The Professor asked, but she wasn't listening… she was trying to figure out what was wrong.

      Digital put her head around the doorframe, her green eyes wide. 

      "Ummm hi." She smiled. "There's something happening on T.V. something about something English. And what with your coming from there Lizzie, thought it might be of interest." She then ducked back out.

      Lizzie looked at the Professor for permission, he nodded and she headed to the door, heading to the Rec room after Digit. A few steps behind, the rest of the X men followed to see what could be so important…

"…violent Explosion… Royal helicopter… carrying King Edward IX and many of his advisors nose-dived… plunged into… the Atlantic… another explosion… perforated fuel tank… search has been instigated… no survivors… palace… informed… keeping… touch with the American President… whereabouts of the Princess… yet to be determined."

      She stood horrified in front of the television set, her face didn't move, a breath hardly passed her lips. Some of the students sat around, others continued with games and homework not knowing that one among them's heart was breaking.

      The scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen revealed the truth of the matter over silent pictures of search and rescue helicopters scanning an area of open-ocean for survivors. Survivors that the anchorman had assured the audience of America surely couldn't exist. The banner proclaimed, "King's helicopter shot down over Atlantic."

      No one stood as shocked as the English woman, but no one understood what this meant. Not like Elizabeth did. Sadly she sank on to the floor, tears starting to fall from her eyes- no one noticed. She cried so violently her nose began to run, the first true showing of her emotions since entering the academy. Still no one noticed her pain. 

      Finally Xavier turned realising that she no longer stood tall beside him. "Elizabeth, what's wrong?". She stared up at him, hand to her nose. "He's dead." She cried. The others turned to her, Wolverine looked down his nose with unbelieving eyes. "I can't believe you're crying over a man you never met. A stuffed shirt, poncy royal."

      She froze, the blood pumping though her body boiled in her veins. Through clenched teeth she yelled, "You had better take that back." 

      "Excuse me?" Wolverine asked not believing what the girl had just said. 

      She lifted herself to her knees and started to get up. "I said you had better take that back you unfeeling bastard." She said getting so close to him she could smell his after-shave. 

      "Miss Windsor I think you had better…" Xavier halted, looking at the distraught woman. And suddenly it all clicked into place. "Windsor." He whispered, "Elizabeth Windsor." He realised. "You're the king's daughter, you're Princess Elizabeth." 

      She turned slightly, letting the sun catch in her blue eyes and sparkle on her tears. Storm and the others, even Wolverine looked taken aback at this development, they were in the company of royalty. But to Lizzie it was something different, a change in attitude. The way Wolverine's shoulders went back, how Storm froze, how the eyes of every child in the room shifted to her with an involuntary gasp- it all made her shudder.

      She felt uneasy, self-conscious, she desperately wanted them away. "Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer." She screamed through her tears before it became too much. She turned on her heal and ran, head down to the stairs and up to her bedroom away from the mutants. Away from the outcasts that were casting her out.

**Come on Muses. Do your Job. **

**All Muses Walk out with collection Buckets and "Give us Reviews" tee shirts. **

**Ahhh I knew Muses were good for something…**

**Digital Muse: Can I have my cheese now?**  


	10. Lizzie’s life

**Misfit- Chapter 10**

**      Disclaimer- Oracles Maiden is shaking her ass wildly to Aerosmith, then she notices the readers Ahhh… Just a sec. Pulls a Pipe from her pocket and Lizzie muse brings her a huge glass of brandy **

**      Lizzie Muse: I thought I was the Princess? **

**      You are. Now scurry along and do my washing. Starts blowing on the pipe and bubbles emerge. Welcome gentle reader to a world where nothing belongs to the author, where the author has power over other's creations; welcome to… raises eyebrow the fan fiction Zone! **

**      Lizzie Muse: Oracle, um I think I put a pair of red knickers in the white wash. **

**      Oracle drops her drink and the bubble pipe starts to stream bubbles a lot faster Run Muse, Run. I'll teach you!**

      Notes- Never let your Muses do your Laundry! In fact lock them in little cupboards under the stairs for good measure. To the ever supportive Anything but Ordinary3 who may have to lend me a white shirt if I need one. And I'm sure the ncsgirl never has this problem with her muses. To both many thanks and hugs and a simple wish that they could control MY MUSES! Ok this is a little more on the angst side, but it also starts to introduce another little theme; a little romance for a Blue furry dude.  

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"Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Lizzie Windsor, she's England's princess"

"When did you hear? About Lizzie Windsor, I mean."

"I was there when it happened."

"Poor Lizzie, her dad's dead and all anyone can talk about is her secret."

"Secret?"

"Doesn't the fact that the King's dead make her Queen though?"

"You're right."

"The Queen of England's a mutant."

"Well who'd have thought it."

"I think you should try to speak to her. She seems to listen to you."

"What can I say that might help her?"

"Just talk, it doesn't matter what you say, just show her a little Human kindness."

      Elizabeth sat looking out at the stars. The intricate patterns of glowing spheres hung limp in a blanket of dark blue.

      "Every one is a wish of one of our ancestors, Lizzie. They got trapped on their way to god and burst into flames because they couldn't happen. They're the wishes of Kings and Queens to be normal, to be ruled not rulers." Her father had said when she was young. That felt like a million years ago. Now he was up there with his balls of flaming wishes.

      She wiped a tear from her cheek, she'd been crying ever since her departure from downstairs, almost two hours previously. In that time the sun had set, and it seemed like an eternity.

      Sitting on the window seat of her room with her arms around her knees she rocked, trying to console herself. Her mother had rocked her as a baby, toddler and young child, all the way up until her death, then her father had taken over. Whenever she was distraught he was there holding her, safe and warm and singing a god-awful lullaby. Now he was gone, and she'd never be rocked or hear the lullaby again – and for once she begged god to let her hear it. She wanted it so much she hummed it herself lightly, hoping her father or even her mother would jump in with the words and that all this would turn out to be an awful dream. But the realisation that this was indeed reality just made her cry even more.

      "What's the matter?" Came the thick German accent of her friend from behind her, Kurt had teleported through the locked door and had come to rest beside her on the seat. She had her back to him but still she could feel the compassion in his eyes.

      "Don't you know?" she said through the tear tracks. She didn't even turn her head.

      "I know what happened. I wondered if you wanted to talk?"

"If I wanted to talk I'd be downstairs not up here wouldn't I?" she replied grumpily.

"I'm sorry."

"Everyone is, everyone's sorry." She choked with a bite, "Is anyone anything but sorry at the moment? But which one are you? Sorry for my fathers death, Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to him, sorry I'm going to become Queen or sorry that you didn't show me the respect deemed worthy of a princess?"

Kurt slumped in shock "Queen?"

He hadn't known, Elizabeth realised, he honestly didn't know.

"No one told you that, huh?" She choked again.

"All I knew was that you had lost your father. That is all Rogue told me."

"Rogue" she smiled sadly, still crying, but her tears fell slower. She hadn't realised that Rogue was in the room, she must have been standing near the back of the crowd. "Rogue told you?"

"Does that matter?"

"I just want to know who hasn't heard the full story yet." She bit again.

"Well I don't and I won't ask you to tell me."

"GOOD." She turned back to the window, watching her own reflection as well as Kurt's in the cool glass. "I'm not going to give anyone anymore gossip about me."

The blue reflection sat for a second, worried about leaving her in that state she was in. she was angry, angry at the world, angry at everything in it.

"Lizzie I…"

"Just go." She instructed.

And in a puff of blue, brimstone smelling smoke he was gone.

      "As I lay me down to sleep, I prey the Lord my soul shall keep…" Kurt Kneeled beside her bed, paws grasped in prayer around his rosaries, eyes closed. "If I should die before I wake, I prey the lord my soul shall take." He paused to think without reason; every night his list of blessings remained the same.

      "God bless those in this house who need you more than most. Bless those who help those in need and those who uphold the ideals that they practice. Bless these X men and their work…" Kurt then paused again, something else needed to be said but he didn't know quite how to phrase it.

      "…And most of all Lord, Protect the Spirit of Elizabeth's father on his voyage to heaven. Make certain he gets his reward. And protect and watch over Elizabeth in her hour of grief, she needs you now lord more than she will admit to or ever know, Please help her. Amen."

      He opened his eyes, letting his gaze be drawn to the crucifix above his bed. He contemplated the cross and the man hanging on it, the Christian symbol of devotion and source of comfort, for most but not for all.

      "Preying for the peace of my soul?" A sweet voice, tinged with sadness and insecurity, interrupted his solitude.

      "No," He breathed, "Your fathers." He slowly rose from his knees, letting his tail move again.

      She stood in front of the closed door, wringing her hands guiltily.

      "I'm sorry…" She said head down in penance "For what I said, for how I acted… I was…" she let her eyes stray from the floor and find his eyes. Her eyes were a bloodshot pink, tear tracks stained her face, she looked a complete wreck.

      "You have no need to apologise. You are upset, your father has just died."

      She stepped closer "But you just came to check I was all right. I treated you badly and I shouldn't have." 

      Again Kurt started "Your father has just died, it is…"

      "Murdered." She corrected, "My father has just been murdered."

      Kurt clutched his rosaries even tighter "Murdered?" He whispered. She could only nod in recognition. 

      "That's why I was upset that Rogue had only gotten half the story. If I had been more composed then I would have…"

      "I don't understand, how did this happen? WHY did this happen?" Kurt asked directing her to take a seat on his bed.

      "The 'How' I can explain in a little detail, I think I know what happened. The 'why' is a bit more complicated, I know in my heart why but I think you're going to have to address half of that question to your man on the cross up there." She sat for a second, as if in deep thought then finally looked up, "It's all a very long story."

      Kurt settled down on the floor in front of her crossing his legs, and letting his tail swing back and forth behind him. "I have time." 

      "Actually you're out of time. I stopped it to get up here." She smiled, before again crumbling to depression.

      Kurt checked, the carriage clock on his bedside table said 11:05 and ten seconds; the second hand was frozen in that position.

      "Then tell me."

      She looked up with a wry smile "I'll show you. Just give me a sec." She got up and headed towards the door, then turned and walked back. Her hands had been empty but now held a leather bound book that looked like a photo album. Kurt looked again at the clock, 11:05 and eleven seconds- it had literally taken her a second to get to her room and back.

      She went to sit on the bed again, but halted, looked down and sat facing Kurt on the floor, her back against the bed. 

      "I haven't shown anyone this. Really I'm not supposed to have this with me, if any of my fathers…" She suddenly realised that anyone that would object to her having the book with her would have been in the copter with her father- they were all dead. "Thompson." She whispered, with regret. She wished now she had been a bit nicer to him on their last meeting, but regrets were something that did no good to the living or dead. She fingered the cover of the book, wondering if she should now show it, would it be an insult to the memory of Thompson and those like him that she had gone behind their backs.

      "He wouldn't have begrudged you memories of your family." Kurt assured her, almost as though he could sense her thoughts. 

      She nodded "You're right." She said as she flipped it open and pulled away the tissue paper from the first page with a solitary photograph adorning it. 

      The picture was of a man and woman in front of a huge church. People stood behind the happy couple, waving at something off behind the camera. The couple were a bride and groom, the bride's gown was ten times more beautiful than any normal brides, and it was easy to see why. The couple had crowns upon their heads, a golden one for the man a silver one for the woman, a royal couple. Underneath the photo in calligraphic handwriting was written "Royal wedding, HRH Edward and Maria Winters" 

      "My mother and father's wedding." She enlightened. "It was watched by 50 million people worldwide. It wasn't their wedding so much as the peoples wedding." She said nostalgically, as she looked at the picture before turning it to the next.

      The backdrop was the same, the same people stayed in almost the same positions behind the main couple, now both dressed in suits of a kind, the woman's was a pastel pink, the mans a charcoal grey. Both waved again at the invisible crowd, the queen though clutched a white bundle in the crook of her arm against her chest. Below the picture in the same handwriting as before was written "HRH Princess Elizabeth's christening."

      "Your parents look very happy" Kurt smiled and Lizzie was forced to too. 

      "My mother had to endure a 12 hour labour just one week before, I think she's happy just to be able to stand. Plus it was a really long day after a sleepless night, it's a miracle that they still have smiles on their faces."

      "How long were your parents married for?"

      "10 years. 2 years before I was born, eight after." 

      "And then?"

      She scoffed at his stupidity "They stopped being married."

      "I understand that. How?"

      She turned another sepia page, this time however stuck to the page was not a photo as such- it was the front page of a tabloid Newspaper. The headline proclaimed "Queen Maria, Dead at 38." The picture was of the smiling queen a tiara of diamonds and pearl on top of her blonde hair. 

      The smaller headline however proclaimed "Royal beauty Killed in head on collision."

      "The driver was drunk." Informed the Princess at his side.

      "How did it happen?" He asked quietly, "Aren't you supposed to travel in a group."

      "We were supposed to. We were at the circus as special guests, mum got a headache from the bright lights and noise, she left early."

"You sound as if you blame yourself?" 

"I do." She admitted. "I made them go. If I hadn't then mum would still be alive."

"Or maybe you would have been travelling together and all have died." Kurt suggested. She looked at him as though he'd just made a bad joke.

"I doubt it." She said sinking lower into her depression. 

She turned the page solemnly again, this time the only thing on either page was a stuck in pressed red rose. She stared at it blankly as did Kurt- he had no idea of its significance. 

After what seemed a lifetime he finally asked her. 

"That Rose represents the last time I was truly ever happy." She replied, devoid of emotion, "That rose is the one I got that night from our hosts as my mum and dad watched me- they said I was going to be a real princess and not just their little one…" now she broke down in tears, sobbing limply onto her photo album.

Kurt leapt forward, pushing the album out of the way and settling beside her instantly. Gently he pulled her against him, as close if not closer than that night in the club when he had helped save her. 

He let her head fall gently against his chest, just under his chin. He could smell her scent- a mix of wild berries, fruits of the forest mixed with the fresh scent of tears of sadness and despair. 

She shallowly sobbed on, snuggling closer to him with every tear shed. He wrapped his arms around her, in comfort but also drawing her closer… somehow when she was near she quietened everything… even his heartbeat disappeared and all that mattered was the girl. 

"sshhhhh." He soothed, stroking her hair, allowing her grief to flow.

She cried solid for around a half hour accompanied now and then with quiet "shhhhh."'s or "There, there"'s. then finally the tide of tears began to grow dry.      

 She looked up at him, her eyes shining with the last of her tears. "I'm sorry…" she breathed quietly.

"For what?" Kurt asked genuinely.

"For being a baby… for sitting and crying like a…" 

"There is no need to be sorry for grieving." He replied, cutting her off. He thought for a second. 

"If I had gone through what you have…"

"I wanted to ask… but I always thought it rude" She asked, sitting up a little but still keeping close to him… allowing the warmth of their bodies to radiate and spread between them as though they were one.

"What did you wish to ask…?" He looked down at her, the warmth radiating in his glance. 

"My mother…" She started, then stopped… "She was a, a mutant. When my powers started to show… she helped me get through it. My father on the other hand- for a while he couldn't accept it." 

"Your question is did my parents accept me, how could they…?" He countered, but Lizzie shook her head in sadness and regret at the tone of his voice.

"It was a heartless question to ask… you don't have to answer."

"My parents didn't." Kurt put it bluntly so that she could understand. "They abandoned me, at least my real parents did. I was found on the bank of a river by the people of the circus… they took me in, treated me like their own son…" He trailed off, "They taught me Human compassion, and brought me to my faith…" 

"They accepted you blindly?" She asked surprised. 

"Did your parents not except you so blindly?" 

"No." Lizzie answered quickly, almost too quickly. "My father and mother were both afraid… even though my mother knew how it was, and that I couldn't change it." She lowered her head again against his chest and Kurt's breath caught in his throat, this simple act was of pure trust as all the others tonight the two had preformed… a great difference from the reaction of hers a few days ago.

"Your parents were afraid because…"

"Because my powers were so huge." She interrupted. "My mother could control light… that was about it. My powers… I could freeze time, I could slow it to the minimum… then they realised I could go back. I could change things." Her look said everything… how afraid, how lonely it was with the power she had. And how for a split second her parents had isolated her too. "It was terrifying for them… I just thought of it as fun… and it was. But it wasn't for them. Hell if I did something in public… it would have been the end for them, for me." She sighed sadly, the last tear falling from her eye. "Who'd want a princess that was 'Wrong'?" 

This shocked Kurt "You believe you are wrong?". He was still absentmindedly stroking her hair… but she didn't seem to notice much. 

"I didn't back then… My Dad didn't either. My mother said I was probably the only right thing in the palace. But everyone else that knew… they thought I was, that I couldn't be "what I was" and a princess. The people wouldn't allow it."

Kurt sat, still puzzled "So… you can't be a mutant and a princess?"

"The advisors didn't think I could. They though that if people knew then they'd call for me to abdicate and my line would die out with me…"

Kurt pulled her a little closer in conciliation, she just sighed however… she wasn't sad anymore, she wasn't angry- she was something worse she was compliant. She was letting this happen to her… she should have been fighting, rebelling… she wasn't. 

"But I should be grateful… at least I had my real parents looking after me." 

"I'm glad." Kurt smiled.

"Why? They abandoned you."

"If they had not existed I would not have been born. If they had not abandoned me, I would not have found my way to god…"

"I don't get that…" She said gently shaking her head against the man's chest. "I've never really 'got' religion."

"It's faith…" Kurt answered automatically.

"I know it is. I have faith too, just not in something like him up there." She indicated to the crucifix above the bed, the one he'd been thinking about before her arrival.

"It is a symbol, one of hope and love." 

Again she shook her head "How can we ever be sure they exist, how can we be sure he exists."

"You have no belief in religion?"

"I see it as an excuse for people to take their differences out on other people. Organised religion is all about 'us' being right and 'them' being wrong…"

He looked at her with pity, was that how she really thought?

"That isn't true…"

"The crusades, religious genocides, Forced marriages- all the miseries that it causes… I don't begrudge anyone faith, its religion I have a problem with." It was now that she pulled away from the closeness- as though her differing point of view had put a barrier between them, it didn't. Kurt looked at it… maybe she was right. But in his heart he felt that she was wrong, and that was faith… a feeling. Maybe her feelings however told her she was right.

"Then what do you believe in?" He asked, wanting to know. 

The girl smiled a bitter smile "I don't know what to believe." She laughed "The archbishops in England would be having a field day if they'd heard me say that, "The defender of the faith doesn't have any"." 

"You must believe in something?"

She turned again to him, the artificial light of the room bouncing off of her eyes "I do." Now she smiled a genuine smile… "I believe in Human compassion, because you showed it me tonight." 

Gently without provocation she leaned forward and grazed his forehead with a kiss. 

Kurt had never experienced anything like this before, it was innocent, pure of heart and mind an act of clarity and splendour that had never entered his mind before. That gentle touch that lasted for only a fraction on an instant sent a bolt of emotion through his body the likes of which he'd never witnessed, and probably never would again.

"Thank you." She whispered as she pulled away. She slipped her fingers around her photo album and started to get up…

"You are leaving?" He asked, confused. He didn't want her to leave, not now… not now. 

"I've taken up too much of your time…" she said shaking her head as she stood on two shaky legs. She smoothed her dress over her herself and it was only now Kurt realised she had no clumpy jacket around her. Her skin had been as close to his as it could be. He wanted it to be… he rained in the impulse to think closer. He was not wholly successful. 

"You have taken up none of my time…" he indicated the clock that was still stuck on 11:05 and eleven seconds. They had talked for what seemed a lifetime in the space of a heartbeat. 

"Maybe not… maybe that's why I'm exhausted. It takes energy to keep time stopped still." She said with tired blotchy eyes.

"You keep saying that." He said with a smile, "However I see no evidence… you're just as you always are… just a little closer to your rest that's all."

"Others would call that weary." She smiled, with only a touch of sadness as she slipped towards the door.

"Lizzie," he called softly after her as she started to slip between his room and the hall. She turned a little to listen. "He is always there." Kurt again indicated the man on the cross on his wall. Lizzie let her eyes linger up for a second before bringing them down to his eyes. 

"Why do I need him to listen and watch over me when I have my own guardian angel on earth right before me?" and as gently and silently as she had entered she left.

Kurt stood for a moment in the complete silence and breathed in the air that still hung with the sent of her. Wild berries, Wild woman. Untamed heart, troubled soul. A woman full of contradictions.

Then he looked down to the spot where they had sat- his mind was just wondering along on its own when he saw it. A scrap of paper on the floor beside the bed, it must have fallen from the book as she scrambled to her feet.

He bent down and picked it up… it was then he realised it wasn't just a scrap of paper… It was one of the photos from the album. 

He turned it over in his fingers looking at the picture side for the first time. This wasn't one of the ones Lizzie had shown him… instead it was a more candid, personal, photo. 

And it filled Kurt with sadness. 

The photo was in woodland, lush green trees and plants grew behind the two people in it. A man was leaning over towards the camera with short red-blonde hair, on his back was a teenage Lizzie in ripped jeans and the blood red top she had worn at Le Bar bat. She was laughing, as was the man- her father. 

And he wasn't going to share another laugh with her like that… he wasn't going to laugh again… and as Kurt sat on his bed looking at the photo he couldn't be sure that Lizzie would laugh like she'd been in the photo ever again.

**Lizzie Muse wanders in dressed in her normal clothes… only bright pink. Oracle follows her in. Ha ha ha! Not my clothes! Ha Ha Ha! Yours! You dyed your own clothes Pink!**

**Lizzie Muse: Do you actually want me to ask for a review, or have you just brought me out here to embarrass me? **

**Embarrassment all the way. However a review might be nice. Now back to the pointing and the laughing! Ha Ha Ha!!!**


	11. Elizabethan Intrigue

**Misfit- Chapter 11**

**      Disclaimer- Hee hee, I like taking things that aren't mine. It gives me a weird and perverted sense of power.**

**      Digital Muse: You're on a power trip! I love it when you do that. Because that makes me the most sane person in the room. Digital continues banging her head against the fireplace while reciting the alphabet in Spanish, half way through however she starts to sing the French national anthem before fainting**

**Yes, I see what you mean. The only bad thing about using other peoples things is you have to put them back and hope to god they didn't notice your play. Anyway if they do I hope they don't sue. Marvel that means you.    **

**      Notes- Ok big thanks to the one and only Anything but ordinary3**

      Mel Muse: Technically that means that there must be at least two other Anything but Ordinarys. 

**      Shut up you shocks her with a cattle prod. And of course to Ncsgirl… got anything to say about that name musey girl? **

**      Mel just lays on the floor with smoke billowing off of her hair. **

**      No? Ok then, I'll continue. Right Ncsgirl, many thanks and to all of the reviewers of Retribution X and this story the same. Another brief thing, as an English woman I need to tell you that no one has ever witnessed a ascension ceremony… so I'm taking a wild guess at what one would be like. Please don't kill me if it ain't anything like this.**

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Elizabeth crept back into the mansion with the stealth of a cat. She'd left early that morning- something Kurt had said the night before had played in her mind, haunted her all night. So she had been and sorted it out. 

      She didn't want to cause a stir with her reappearance, that's why she snuck in. She didn't want the scenes of the night before to be repeated, everyone looking at her like she was a freak. Well she wasn't. What was that old catchphrase her father was always… had always spouted she corrected herself, remembering when she was again. She was post her father, this wasn't the Edwardian era anymore… This was the reign of Elizabeth the third. 

      I am not a number, I am a man. That's what he'd always said. From some show he'd watched as a younger man.

      Now half way up the stairs she punched the air in victory. No one had yet spotted her no one was giving a funny look…

      "Your Highness…" a voice called from the bottom of the stairs. Lizzie could feel a hundred different pairs of eyes shift in her direction. She let out an exasperated sigh before turning to face the person who had caught her. 

      Storm stood at the base of the stairs, looking up at her unsure of how to address her. It was a regular problem people had. They didn't know how to talk to her or what to call her when they found out, it was always the same. 

      "Yes Storm." She said tiredly.

      The weather goddess looked up at her and smiled gently "There are some people waiting in the Professors office for you."

      Elizabeth dismissed it and continued walking. "Tell them I'm busy and to address any questions they have to the palace…" Damn reporters, she hadn't expected them to find her so soon.

      "They said to tell you it was an audience… they said that might change your mind."

      Still Lizzie kept walking.

      Storm tried again. "They said it had something to do with your ascension."

      Only now did Lizzie pause. That was blunt, to the point of them. But that's how hard they were these men that created monarchs, they had to be. They were ruthless. 

      They were that blunt with her father when it was his turn. His father had just departed the mortal coil after a stroke, he had been in the corridor outside, his wife stroking his hair in comfort he was holding the infant Elizabeth in a strong embrace asking her to never leave him the way his father had. Then a shadow had fallen over them. The royal wordsmiths and spin doctors wanted to gloss over the wording of the announcement of his succession. 

      Now they wanted her to do the same… They hadn't even recovered her father's body. 

      All she could do was silently descend and follow the teacher. This was too much for her to comprehend as she walked silently, this moment was too huge. She wanted to be up in her bedroom, she wanted to be home in the palace where she was born- any of the palaces for that matter, she wanted to be back in Le Bar Bat before all this began she wouldn't even have minded the madmen out for her body she would have fought them off. She just didn't want to have to walk into that office and take the responsibility left to her by her father. But as she neared the door she straightened her back and lifted her head like she'd been taught, Her ancestor, the first Elizabeth had said at this moment that God had provided, Lizzie felt like god had condemned her to an early death. 'This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes'- that was the exact wording, if she remembered correctly, but it had been in Latin so not those exact words.   

      She been ready for this moment all her life, she just expected it to be later on- after she'd had the opportunity to live as Elizabeth Windsor for a while. Not live her whole life past adolescence as Queen. 

      She repeated her name over and over in her head… Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie… she was Lizzie. 

      'Darling you can't be Queen Lizzie of England and the commonwealth.' Her fathers voice laughed in her head. Git. She called her father all the names under the sun in her head for his statement and for the fact that he had had the Gaul to leave her in this position. He'd asked her not to leave him, but she realised now she had never begged him to do the same for her, she'd taken it for granted that he'd be there forever… and now he wasn't. 

      A tear trickled from her eye as they rounded the last corner before Professor X's study, but she wiped it away with little thought of it. A Queen was beyond such shows of emotion. Then why were her hands shaking? 

      Storm didn't even hesitate before the door, just quickly turned the knob and let them both in. 

      The occupants stood. 3 men in suits, a couple of women in skirts. She'd seen them before… aides that had flown in a hurry to reach her… one man was the British ambassador. A man of small stature and very little official power… but now the most powerful man in the room. The ambassador's name was Smithe if she remembered correctly from her fathers work. 

      "My Highness." He gushed and bowed at the same time, the others in the room did the same. Including for the first time the collected X men that had obviously come for the freak show of the ascension. She didn't blame them, it would be the first and possibly the last time they witnessed something of this 'Importance'. But she did expect a bit better from Kurt and the Professor who was sitting behind the desk expectantly… almost as if waiting for the start of some great performance by Shakespearian actors. She wanted to tell him that that came at the coronation not the ascension. This was little more than a reading telling everyone collected that she was Queen apparent. Apparent until the day at the abbey when she was crowned then she'd be Queen coronet.

      She knew instinctively what to do having seen her father's ceremony. She took a seat opposite the ambassador who she took it would be acting as emercee for this morning's performance of the ascension. She collected herself and sat upright as if made from marble, staring into the pupils of Mr Smithe, who looked overcome with the gravitas of the act he was performing.

      He walked towards her and knelt at her feet, un-scrolling a piece of parchment and reading from it. 

      "Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Windsor do you promise to uphold the Line of England's succession?"

      "I do." She stated with no though.

      "Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Windsor do you promise to uphold the Church of England and Scotland and all that it stands for?"

      Again she answered automatically "I do."

      Ambassador Smithe looked up at her now, "And Elizabeth, Daughter of Edward Windsor do you promise to uphold the Law of England and her realms, to protect all that is ours from attack and do so with your dying breath?" 

      Elizabeth paused now, the depth of the words hitting her at full force. "I do." She said in a soft voice.

      The ambassador held out the parchment for her indicating a line on the bottom for her. Then he handed her a quill. Elizabeth had never written with one before, she'd always used pen- but this was official, it was ceremony. She leaned against the professors desk as she signed in black ink, all eyes watching her. She blotted it with a piece of tissue on hand. She had signed her life away. 

      She sat upright again and all the air began rushing out of her body, she was deflated and felt like crying again, but she couldn't. She had to be strong for the sake of her country, self-sacrifice she heard ringing in her head like a bell.   

      The ambassador stood in his brand new pressed suit and held the contract she had made with her country aloft. 

     "On this Day, of this month, of this Holy year I have been vested with the task and holy duty to proclaim that Edward James Phillip Windsor the IX of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been succeeded to the throne. Long like his daughter Elizabeth Victoria Mary Windsor, from here forth know as Queen Elizabeth III by the Grace of God, Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. May god protect and keep her always…" He paused looking at the parchment… "God save the Queen." 

      "God save the Queen." Was barked by all those in the room that were English then quickly was followed by those of differing nationalities.

      Elizabeth just sat with weak eyes scanning the face of all the mutants. The Professor looked proud and patriotic, Logan looked at her with distain, Kurt with sadness- the others were unreadable. They just stood observing. And Elizabeth, as she would now always be, couldn't take that. That was the way people looked when in audiences with her father… she hadn't liked it then and she certainly didn't like it now.

      "Stop it." She urged aloud. 

      "Stop what your Majesty?" one woman asked confused. She looked familiar to Elizabeth, probably one of the ambassador's teenage daughters.

      "This." She agitatedly cried, "Stop looking at me as though I've just sprouted horns from the top of my head, but you're too polite to say anything." She screamed at Storm and Scott.

      She turned quickly to the Professor "And you… Smiling like this is some great moment in history, it isn't it's a girl being condemned."

      "And You," She turned in a flurry of tears that were finally falling and pain that she couldn't hold back any longer "You think your so much better than me. You think that I'm just some stuffed shirt, that doesn't know or give a damn. But I'll always give a damn."

      She then turned to Kurt who still looked at her with sad eyes "And you my friend," She softly spoke "Stop trying to convince yourself that this is completely wrong. Because it isn't. I was BORN to do this. This is my one purpose. I was meant for nothing more, nothing less." 

      Kurt leaned slowly forward calmly and mournfully "That does not mean that it is RIGHT though."

      Elizabeth froze again as if she had finally stopped time for herself and no one else. But she just looked him in the eyes for a second before turning on her heel and walking out of the room no longer consumed but still driven by emotion. 

      "What the hell did you say that for?" The Ambassador snapped, all eyes turning either accusingly or else compassionately towards Kurt. 

      "Because her father has just died and she needs a little Human compassion… something you seem to lack." He answered. "She has only grieved for a day and you have pronounced her Queen already, can't you leave her in peace to morn her father?"

      Ambassador Smithe walked calmly forward "This is tradition you have messed with today. This is the way it has been done for centuries. Victoria was woken in the early hours of the morning to hear that she'd ascended. It never did her much harm."

      "Victoria succeeded her grandfather not her father and she was not solely dependant on him for her emotional support… she has no one from your world that she trusts or loves anymore."

      The ambassador stood idly as the X men started to collectively leave, all looking ashamed at what they had witnessed. Kurt got up and went to the door "I hope you are proud of what you have done here today, because I doubt Lizzie will look on this day with pride."

      Then silently he left. The Ambassador and his aides just stood silently. The ambassadors daughter stepped forward and clutched her fathers hand… she didn't want her father to leave her, like Lizzie's had.

Lizzie fled the confines of the mansion in tears. People turned and looked as she ran past them in floods of tears. Catching a glance of a new queen at her most vulnerable. 

      She ran out of the doors and out to the garden where she had sat on her first day. It had been so little time, but everything had changed. And she wished it could go back to being simple… but it couldn't and she had to be strong. For herself and for those whom she had a duty to. 

      She couldn't let herself slip, that could be disastrous. 

      She reached the tree she'd been under, where the sunlight had caressed a Princesses skin, now the sun was hidden by a cloud and a princess was now a Queen. 

      And it wasn't fair. 

      She slipped down to her knees in pain, tears running down her cheeks and onto the ground which she pounded with her closed fists. It did nothing but bruise them, it did nothing to ease the pain.

      "It isn't fair! Why are you doing this to me! Haven't I been through enough!" she screamed at the sky, to a god she knew didn't exist. Her cry was filled with a thousand emotions, full of pain and rage that she could not see her way through. Though darkness and nothingness, the emptiness that was inside her, that she knew that she couldn't control. 

      She screamed into the air, a primal scream, just wanting the world and the pain to stop. 

      "Lizzie?" Rogues soft voice cut like a knife through her, so kind and caring, just like her mothers. 

      She didn't respond however, she just lay sobbing on the ground, her chest heaving against the solid soil. 

      "Your majesty?" she said creeping closer…

      "Don't call me that!!" she screamed at her, scaring Rogue into a retreat, but one for only a few steps. 

      "Fine, I won't." she said terrified. "I just wanna make sure you're all right."

      Lizzie looked up anger flaring and bursting in her blue irises. "Do I look all right to you?" she cried. 

      Rogue didn't answer because it was obvious; she just stood impartially watching her outpouring of grief.

      After a few more moments Rogue stepped forward again wishing she could quiet the girl with a touch, but she couldn't without causing the girl real pain. And she didn't need any more pain… she was in too much already. 

      "I wish I could help you Lizzie."

      "Everybody wants to help me… But wanting to isn't helping me at all." She sniffed trying to compose herself. In reality though it didn't work, she just cried less loudly… the sorrow inside her however was deafening. 

      "I'm sorry." Rogue took a seat next to her rubbing her back in a safe form of sympathy. "I'm sorry for all of this."

      "Yeah well, it had to happen didn't it." She said whipping away her latest barrage of tears. 

      "Why did it have to happen?" Rogue asked.

      "Because it had to." Lizzie said, convinced that what she was saying was true. "Because being what I am, it has to lead to heartache, especially my own."

      "Excuse me miss, do you have clearance?" A macho voice said behind Rogue, roughly taking her shoulder to draw her full attention. 

      He was a man with a crew cut, a black suit and tie, black glasses and an earpiece, and he was standing unsmiling, and because she couldn't see his eyes Rogue couldn't tell if he was as concerned as she about the young Queen-to-be, that was if he was concerned at all. 

      "Clearance?" she asked confused, since when had she needed clearance to speak to her friend. Then she remembered, since she had become queen. 

      "Well I'm sorry… I… um…" Rogue mumbled trying to search for an explanation. 

      Lizzie just looked up, her tears brimming then falling out of her eyes. 

      "JUST GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE YOU NUMB NUT! CAN'T YOU SEE I DON'T WANT YOU FOLLOWING ME AROUND! JUST PUSH OFF AND LEAVE ME AND MY FRIENDS ALONE!!!" She exploded into his face, causing the butch bodyguard to recoil and retreat. 

      The tears still fell but after this outburst Elizabeth looked a lot better, even if she felt anything but. 

      "Sorry about that." She said quietly as she tried to shrug it off.

      Rogue just stood amazed as the guard continued to run until he reached the mansion at the other end of the garden, safely out of the Queens way. 

      "Remind me never to piss you off." Rogue smiled. 

      Lizzie's eyes changed for a second to what they had once been. "That was me emotional, that's nowhere near me being pissed off." Then they changed back to the darkness of the present. "I shouldn't have done that though."

      "Why not. Your emotional, I think you have every right to be like that." Rogue sat with her back against the bark of the tree, just like Lizzie was now sitting.

      "What I don't get is why you were so calm in there, then suddenly this." She asked. 

      Lizzie sat in a daze for a second before replying in a distant voice "Emotions are a dangerous thing to have… For me to have."

      Rogue sat for a second thinking about this cryptic comment. "Why is it dangerous for you to feel?"

      "Because sometimes you can loose control." She replied still in a different world. It was like getting blood out of a stone, but still Rogue persevered. 

      "How would you know that?"

      "Because I did that."

      "You did what?"

      "Lost control." Lizzie breathed, "And when I lost control of my emotions I lost all control. And I don't want that to happen again."

      Rogue quieted even more when she realised "When you lost your mother, you lost control then, Didn't you?"

      Sadly Lizzie nodded. "It was the one moment in my life when I didn't fell like I had some kind of control and it frightened me, scared me and then all the emotions that came with knowing, just knowing, that she wouldn't be there anymore, and seeing what I saw…"

      "What did you see?" Asked Rogue, trying not to pry. 

      "I saw her. I saw her when she was dead." 

      The different interpretations of this didn't occur to Rogue because she could only see it in the way she always had. The way that she had experienced it herself. 

      "I saw my grandma like that, all laid out in the coffin… it must not be as bad as when it's your mom but…"

      "She wasn't laid out Rogue." Lizzie said, burying her head into her knees. 

      Than Rogue realised what Lizzie meant. "I'm sorry. I didn't…"

      "Drunk driving, should be punishable by death. My mother died, her driver died but the man in the lorry that hit her because he was going the wrong way up a motorway? He lived, didn't have a scratch on him and got 8 months and his licence revoked. He killed 2 people, and that's all. Life isn't fair."

      "You…" Rogue breathed still fixated on the thought of what Lizzie had seen. "How?"

      Lizzie paused for a second before sitting up again. "It's great to have powers isn't it? Because you can do everything that other people can't, everything that other people don't expect- everything they tell you not to do."

      "I don't underst…"

      "I snuck by the police barriers when our limo stopped. Dad recognised the limo and wanted to see if mum was all right. So I stopped time and went to see her… and I did."

      She started to cry harder again, but her voice still remained strong. 

      "She just lay there, her head was covered in blood. Her dress was pink but it had been white, Rogue. And she'd snapped her neck. Her, her neck… oh god" she broke down again at the thought. 

      With her gloves on Rogue rapped her arm around the princess, to calm her. 

      "Everything's ok now though…" she said soothingly but as she looked up she realised how wrong everything was. The birds had stopped, the leaves had stopped, the people had stopped. Time itself had stopped.

      "Lizzie… what have you…?" she gasped. 

      "This is what happens. This is what happens when I loose control Rogue. I can't control myself, I can't control time. It scares me."    

      Rogue just sat amazed by the quietness of time halted.

      "It happens by itself when I let it all get to me. It happened after my mothers death. And since then… its always happened. When I get highly emotional, when I'm stressed… the only time it doesn't is when I'm terrified… it just shuts down then."

      Rogue still looked astonished but managed to say "After your mothers death?"

      "When she died I lost it completely- every constraint I had went out the window, I started and stopped time every few minutes; for myself, for my father and me… for people I barely knew. Those people were debriefed, made aware of my secret and paid off or else sworn to secrecy themselves on pain of death."

      "But how did they…? 

      "Stop me?" completed Lizzie, her eyes shining, she scoffed "Quite simply, they couldn't. so they did what they had to keep my secret. They did it to keep my secret for me."

      "What did the do Lizzie?" Rogue asked, shocked by the new amount of pain in her eyes. 

      "They drugged me." She replied simply. "They kept me like a zombie for a year and a half. Made me perform like a captive sea lion, do all the things that I did normally but in a daze, a haze, like a cloud had descended on me and I couldn't shake it off. Conscious sedation they called it, more like waking death, I did all these things and I didn't give a damn. I don't remember most of those eighteen months, just flashes. That's one of the reasons telepaths can't read my mind, because of all these repressed memories, they overcome me and the person reading them because of all the pain I couldn't feel."

      "They couldn't do that to you. They wouldn't have been allowed." Rogue said, outraged. 

      Lizzie laughed at her innocence. "Rogue this is the British government you're talking about here, they aren't a chorus of angels. They do what they think is best for their country not what they think is best for it's princess."

      Rogue looked her sympathetically in the eyes. "And what about your father? Didn't he object?"

      Lizzie broke the eye contact, deep in thought wondering how her father had really felt. 

      "He didn't. I don't know if it was because I was in pain and he wanted it to stop or if it was so that I wouldn't risk my secret being discovered Rogue, but he agreed… but I don't know if he thought he was right. And now I'll never know." Her tears had almost dried and they no longer fell and finally after what seemed like forever in Lizzie's heart, she was finally in control. 

      "I'm sorry you'll never know that Elizabeth. But…"

      "It's the way of the world Rogue, its been happening since the first Kings and Queens were created. One monarch dies and another is created. I've been prepared for that day, for this day since forever. It was meant to happen, it's destiny. And I thought I was prepared- but I wasn't, was I?"

      Rogue shook her head, "You can never be prepared for what has happened to you, even if people have been trying to since forever. You've handled it in the only way you know how, the right way; the right way for you. You've done ok." Rogue assured. 

      Lizzie smiled at the sentiment. "The right way for me. I have done ok." She said plaintively. 

      "You've done the best you can." Rogue smiled again as the sound of the world resumed. 

      It was startling how much noise there was in a normal day once you had experienced a moment without it, but it made the day even more beautiful. 

      "Elizabeth! Your Majesty!" A boys voice echoed through the newly established call. 

      Across the grass bounded Fear, his long black hair blowing around him and flopping into his eyes as he approached, his legs moving him as fast as they could. 

      Finally when he reached them, panting for breath, he smiled brightly. 

      "Hey Lizzie." He panted before leaning over to get his breath back. 

      "Hey Fear." She smiled bemusedly with Rogue.

      "Um… I just heard what happened in Xavier's office…" he continued to pant. "I wanted to check you were all right."

      Lizzie shared a smile with Rogue again. "I'm fine thanks for asking."

      Rogue and Lizzie went to stand up, and Fear offered both his hands to the queen, to help her. She blushed as she accepted and was gently pulled to her feet by the taller man. He returned the blush. 

      "Look I don't suppose when all of this has died down you'd maybe want to break out of the palace one night and go for a drink with a not so commoner."

      At this Lizzie's tear tracked face broke into a larger grin. 

      "I don't know…" she looked to Rogue who was grinning and nodding like an idiot. "Umm… I'll have to see what I can do."

      He smiled even broader. 

      The serenity of the moment however was broken suddenly as a huge black helicopter swept over the mansion and headed down the gardens towards them. 

      Rogue and Lizzie both took a step forward. 

      "Why the hell is that here?" Lizzie asked, watching as it swooped ever nearer. 

      "I thought it might have something to do with you?" Rogue said doing the same. 

      Both of their voices were now raised over the din of the copter hovering over them. 

      They stared up watching the rote blades turn. 

      "Look Lizzie, we may have to cancel the drink for a bit." Fear said from behind.

      "Whys that Michael?" she said not taking her eyes away from the sky. 

      "Because I don't think you'll drink with me after this." He said his tone changing in a second to a more business like one. 

      There was a blinding pain in the base of Lizzie's neck as Fear jabbed a hypodermic needle into both her and Rogue's necks, and injected them simultaneously. 

      As both dropped to their knees their vision fading into blackness, struggling instantaneously for breath then blacking out, their breathing slow and deep. 

      Fear simply grinned watching them, and replacing the syringes in his jeans back pocket. While there he pulled out a small silver earpiece and microphone. 

      "They're down, you can land." He told the helicopter before leaning down and turning over the unconscious Rogue, carefully avoiding her skin. 

      "Sorry you had to get involved, but you are now." He grinned evilly.

Digital Muse: This is a public announcement on behalf of the Oracles Maiden Muse Party. Please contribute to our cause. We believe that every chapter should have a loving happy review to be paired with. If however that cannot be found then a substandard one telling us what its done wrong will do… Holds finger up to ear, even though she doesn't have an ear piece Oh all right, no flames. We don't want chapters going to bad homes.  


	12. Inside the sanctum

**Misfit- Chapter 12**

**      Disclaimer- Digital Muse: So you wanna know what happened? Good cause so do I! Hey Oracle am I in this bit? **

**      Briefly. **

**      Digital Muse: Narf!**

**      Right. But before I begin I have to say nothing again is mine except Good ol' Lizzie. Not even my Muse's catchphrase's are mine. **

**      Digital Muse: Yabba dabba doo!!! **

**      Shaking head I have to find you a new hobby.**

**      Notes- Thanks to "I'd rather eat anything but ordinary cheese!" Thinks for a second um, that came out wrong. That was supposed to be Anything but ordinary3. She's slaving away on a new chapter of Retribution X as we speak. Drops lights so there is a menacing spotlight on her face, menacingly Soon my pretties, soon!!!! Reverting back to normal state was I saying something? Oh yes. To Ncsgirl as always, thanks for the kind reviews, they are very much appreciated. And to all other readers and followers, thanks for the support! You know who you are.**   

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"Poor child" Professor Xavier said blowing on his tea to cool it. 

      "Poor kid?" Logan said, not believing his ears "She's got it made for life and your saying poor kid?"

      He leaned back on the kitchen unit as the others in the room eyed him, not agreeing with anything he'd said, except one. 

      "I agree that she's got it made, but I don't think its easy Logan." Scott answered. 

      "Things are getting bad when you back me up one eye." He moaned, provoking a glance of exasperation from the other man. 

      "Lizzie will have things tough, she'll never be normal." Storm said in between sips of tea. 

      "Well here's the news flash, neither will we. But she's gonna have all the luxury's in the world while for all she'd care we could be eatin' dinner in the gutter but she wouldn't bat an eyelid about another mutant."

      "That isn't fair." Kurt said on the other side of the counter, looking shamefully back down at the tea in his paws. 

      Logan scoffed "You of all people can't tell me you feel sorry for her elf."

      The man locked Logan with his golden gaze. "I have seen what this has done to her, Logan. She hides her pain from others because she believes it weakens her or possibly that her emotions impose on others. Life is not easy for her Logan, Its harder than you will ever know."

      "And she does care about mutants." The professor added, "In her native England she has been a loud voice for mutant rights and the rescinding of their mutant registration and segregation law. She's a veteran marcher, she walks tall with us- and she has been in trouble for it."

      "She's been arrested?" Bobby giggled. 

      "Far worse Mr Drake, the opposition leader broached the subject of the suitability of a princess marcher to take the throne, which is one of the reasons I believe Elizabeth is so hesitant to reveal herself as a mutant; the fear that they will remove her from the right to succession." He paused for thought with his teacup halfway to his lips. "The only thing she has ever been sure of, the fact that she would be a queen- Easily taken away in an instant."

      The room fell silent for a moment, all inside pondering what it would be like, loosing the one thing that they were the most sure of in the entire world. If they lost their power how would they feel?

      "Professor!" Firefly called breathlessly from the door as Digital ran and joined him. "There's something going on outside- something you should see!"

      For a second the professor's face went blank before calmly he turned to his X men.

      "Logan, Strom, Cyclops- go to the gardens now."

      The three looked at one another before starting to move off. 

      "What's happenin' Chuck?" Logan questioned as he left his sat.

      Again the professor didn't bat an eyelid, "Just go Logan, you will see when you get there. It might be wise to take Kurt too."

      Kuet looked shocked for a second before Bamfing out of his seat to the door with the others as they quickly moved off down the hall.

      "What about me Professor?" Questioned Bobby as he placed his cup back on the counter. 

      "I don't think it would be prudent for you to go Bobby, I think you would be better served staying here with me."

      When the X men reached the garden doors it was easy to see why there was such a commotion. 

      The pupils stood amazed and horrified, looking at a huge black helicopter that had parked itself on the lawn beside the Basketball court. Its doors were open and some men in black with gold masks were out helping to carry something to it. 

      "Those are the guys from the club the other night." Logan growled before starting to run towards the copter. 

      "Logan!" Scott screamed at him before running after, pursued by Storm and Nightcrawler. 

      The children parted and let them pass as they ran further down the concrete paths, heading towards the copter. 

      As they got closer though Logan slowed, watching, with his acute senses on full alert. This allowed Scott to catch up and step in front of him. 

      "What in the hell do you think you're doing? We don't even know what their here for!" He said hitting Logan across the chest. 

      "Do you wanna get out of my way or would you rather I moved you?" Logan growled. 

      "There's no time for this" Storm interjected, tearing them apart, "Look!" she indicated up to the copter, the man waiting beside the door was now visible as Fear, and the men were moving around the copter so what they were carrying would become very clear within a second.

      "What do you think they have?" Nightcrawler asked, innocently. 

      "What do you think elf." The wolverine growled as the body of a young girl was carried into view, head slumped against her chest, blonde hair spread over her face- unconscious, her shoulders held by one man, her feet and legs by another. 

      Then two more men and another body, red and white hair across her face, being carried in the same way. 

      When both sets of men got to the door they flung their girl into the arms of another man inside the copter then climbed in themselves avoiding the still rotating rotorblades. 

      Even from this distance Fears evil grin was visible, lighting up his face for the whole world to see. 

      "Rogue?" Storm questioned, "Why would they take Rogue as well?"

      But Logan didn't hear it or really care, because he was already past Scott and was racing down the path, past the roses and tulips and an amazed Remy LeBeau in his cherry tree. 

      Seeing Wolverine running towards them, Fear Jumped up into the copter with a flourish, closing the door behind him and signalling to the masked pilot. And the copter rose into the air, out of Logan's reach, Taking Rogue and the Queen of England with it. 

      Logan and the Other's returned to the kitchen downcast, they had lost them. 

      The Professor looked up but when he saw their faces his own fell. 

      "What's going on?" Bobby asked. In the minutes they had been gone he'd been getting more and more anxious. When the X men had appeared her had literally jumped out of his seat and across the room. 

      "They took her…" Logan said as calmly as he could, "They took her and Rogue."

      Bobby's face fell further than it had been, and in his eyes he was panicking. "Took Rogue? Who took Rogue?" he screamed at Logan. 

      "We don't know." Logan shouted back, the tension was overcoming everyone in the room. Storm and Cyclops just looked at the floor, embarrassed by their failure, Logan was looking a Bobby frozen with fear in the eye, and Kurt was pacing nervously repeating the prayer of St. Francis over and over. Only the Professor seemed composed. 

      "I do." The Professor stated.

      Everyone turned from what they were doing to him, the tension overcoming everybody in the room. 

      "You do? How Who?" Storm asked, her voice tinged with worry for the two women. 

      The professor simply tapped his temple. "A group called Hellfire." He reversed his wheelchair and started towards the door. "I believe its time to try out that database we "Borrowed" from Stryker. It may take a while to find, but I'm sure anything we find will be of use."

      He was half out of the door when he stopped and turned. 

      "I'll call all of you when I find something, until then there is no need to worry about either Rogue or Miss Windsor, I do not believe they wish to harm either."

      "Nice words Chuck, but you'll understand if it don't put me at ease." Logan glowered.

      The first thing that Lizzie could remember was the hands, strong weathered hands against the flesh of her arms, someone must have removed her jacket.

      She had been barely conscious at the time but she remembered being pulled by these people, two of them, one on each arm, she was limp and unfeeling. Where she was being pulled to she did not know. She kept getting the vision of her in Le Bar Bat, spread out on a table, barely sensible while these two men stood waiting… waiting to taste her flesh. This time however there was no Logan or Kurt to save her. She wished her knights where there. 

      The only sound she could hear as she was dragged to wherever was the scuff of her boots against the ruff stone floor mixed with the heavy breathing of the men. Maybe they weren't breathing heavy, she told herself, maybe she was just too close to them.

      The men stopped for a second and Lizzie heard something distant but becoming clearer… It must have been talking. The men had stopped to talk to someone. This opened up  different possibilities in Lizzie's mind, this meant that they had to be someplace where no one frowned on what was being done to her… they all had to be in on it.

      She was in the men's base. 

      She felt the whoosh of air upon her face, which gave her senses a boost. A door must have opened in front of them, from the accompanied scraping and scratching Lizzie presumed it was motorised and that it was sliding into the (She again guessed) stonewalls. 

      She still hung limp trying to regain all measures of rational though but was by this time fully conscious. She didn't want to give the game away yet though. 

      This was tested when she was thrown again to the floor. It winded her and she clutched at her side. 

      "Shit…" She winced curling into a ball. 

      "Now, Now Miss Elizabeth. That isn't language befitting a Queen, is it?" a powerful mans voice boomed from somewhere in front of her. 

      Slowly she started to open her eyes, only a crack at first, then letting them flutter open, like a broken dolls. 

      She was in a huge chamber, dark and old, it smelt musty like a library in very little use. Above hung a broken chandelier, hanging lopsidedly from it's fittings, that wasn't giving much light out. She was caged by a huge circular table, surrounding her apart from the small break in it that Lizzie had been thrown in from. 

      People were sitting behind the desk in the darkened recesses of the room, but from her foetal position on the floor Lizzie had trouble making them out. 

      "I don't know. A French Queen might." She moaned as she started to push herself up, shielding her newly focusing eyes from the light, although technically it was all but non-existent. 

      "You Joke too much." A female voice now echoed, replacing the man's, she sounded annoyed.           

      "How would you know?" She smiled flippantly back at the woman… or at least as the vague silhouette that she believed was the woman who spoke.

      A man leaned forward into the light a little- allowing Lizzie in her now raised state to see his face. He had a square jaw, a goatee and long black hair tied back into a ponytail. He looked a thick set man from what could be seen of his body behind the desk, and he was dressed in 18th century garb… or at least a representation of 18th century garb. He smiled a smile that radiated pure evil and frightened Lizzie to her very soul. 

      "We know everything." He replied silkily, dangerously, before withdrawing back into the shadows where ha belonged. 

      "How?" Lizzie asked, all the frivolity gone from her voice and face. Now she was concerned that someone would jump her from behind. 

      "We have eyes everywhere." Came the woman's voice again, but she didn't reveal herself.

      "Eyes that know everything." A voice said swooping in behind her then moving off. She didn't need to see the face… she'd know Fear's voice anywhere. 

      "You Bastard!" She replied in a fevered whisper, turning her head only slightly. 

      "Eyes…" another female voice, more quiet and thoughtful than the other, "That can see into any part of you. Even your brain."

      Elizabeth didn't expect it… so it made the sensation even worse. Someone in the room was a telepath, and they were trying to read her mind…

           Darkness, extreme cold swept over her, darkness followed by a blinding flash in her brain and a rush of memories that were painful, fireworks in her brain again. Brain freeze followed inevitably.

      She screamed and grabbed her head. This was worse then the professor's intrusion, he'd felt around before entering… the pain had been slight. This one had leapt in where they were not wanted.

      She heard a scream that echoed her own, the same heat in the voice and same squeal of pain. It was the sweet voiced woman, the one that had last spoke… she was the telepath. 

      Lizzie fell forward onto her knees. Breath caught in her throat. The pain in her head hadn't been this bad ever, and it was scaring her even more then she had been before. 

      She looked up, hoping that whatever her captors had planned for her hadn't involved the pain of one of their own. 

      She saw the woman tumble to the desk in front of her, her blonde head and white dressed body slamming against it, the vibration knocking over a glass. Another man came out of the shadows, he looked Latino in appearance. He too was dressed in 18th century garb, and his moustache was curled at the ends like that century's gentlemen wore them. He scuttled forward and helped the woman uneasily to her feet. 

      "My Queen are you alright?" He asked and she fell against him. 

      "I'm fine Emmanuel." She fluttered. She looked far from fine however, and Lizzie didn't feel that good either.

      The man and another helped her over to a fainting couch that Lizzie hadn't seen over in the corner. She lay down with the man attending to her. 

      Another man stepped into the light… he was dressed in pure black and he looked down on Lizzie like she was a rag doll that had displeased him… he turned to her and stood tall. Lizzie cowered when she saw the full of his face, it was covered in terrible scars, like his head had been ripped apart and sown back together by someone who had never used a needle in his life. He was a Frankenstein's monster, but even more terrifying because he looked basically human… apart from his eyes… one blue, one brown, both almost lifeless and full of hatred. 

      She knew what he was going to do… he must have been telepathic too, he was going to finish what the woman had started he would read her mind and not be afraid of what had happened happening to him. A glint crossed his eyes and Lizzie shut hers… sure that the pain would be intolerable and that soon she would be dead from it… she'd be with her father soon. 

      "Jason stop." Came a male voice from the shadows. The man with the scars turned slowly to his right, and from the shadows emerged a woman, her skin blue as the sky with scales and ridges eyes as yellow as dandelions and red hair slicked against her scalp and running down to the middle of his shoulders. She was completely naked. "We don't want you getting hurt now do we?" She smiled, a man's voice emanating from her mouth. Lizzie knelt still looking up, shocked- she'd never seen anything like this before. 

      The scared man sat thankfully. That reduced Lizzie's fear about threefold. But in her chest her heart was still beating faster than she would have liked. Was this Jason worse than the blue woman?

      "You'll have to excuse Mastermind Elizabeth. He can be a little rash when he believes he knows what his father wants doing." The woman turned at the sound of the man's voice she smiled and stepped back a little. Elizabeth's eyes still remained as wide as they had been still staring at the vague shape that was the blue woman. 

      "Don't let Mystique scare you, your majesty. She wouldn't hurt you unless I told her too- or possibly if you chased her with a burning torch." A man stepped out of the shadows towards the centre of the table in front of her, he had short silver hair and he unlike everyone else she had seen was not wearing the clothes of a gentleman from the 18th century, or that of a lady. She tried to lighten her spirits by imagining him in a dress like the women… but if didn't alleviate any of the fear inside her. Instead it gave her the mental image of a madman in a dress. 

      "Magneto." She breathed. She remembered her father having a briefing about the man… a maniac who could control metal and wanted to rid the world of "normal" people. She shook a little harder now knowing what kind of people she was in the midst of. 

      "It's nice to know my reputation precedes me your majesty." He smiled nodding in a curt bow. "But I would prefer it if you would call me the White King while you are in my company."

      "White King?" Lizzie said, frightened. "Why? Where the hell am I?"

      Magneto smiled, but Lizzie didn't feel any better, the pain was still reverberating in her head for one thing. "You're in the Hellfire club, girl." He said contempt in his voice. 

      "Hellfire…" she said, wrinkling her brow in thought, it hurt to think but on the edge of her consciousness she remembered the name… "Hellfire? Isn't that the club for rich business people? The one that has a branch in Mayfair?"

      His smiled got wider. "The very same."

      "The one that offered me membership on my eighteenth birthday? That the palace turned down on the grounds that I don't take gifts from private clubs?"

      "Yes," he hesitated before continuing "It would have been a lot easier if you had taken the membership of course. We wouldn't have had to make at raid on the palace, organise the attack at the club, got an operative into dear old Charles' school…" He glanced over to Fear who smirked back. "You would have just walked into our hands- no need for violence at all."

      Lizzie looked him in the eye- she had just enough courage to do that. "You really want me don't you?"

      "Why Elizabeth, you're the most important thing to us. You see the Hellfire club isn't just a group of men and women trying to get ahead in business. This isn't just a club of connections anymore. This club stated centuries ago with only one goal in mind…"

      "I'm guessing it wasn't to conserve the population of fluffy animals." Lizzie spoke up, as serious as hell. However Magneto sniggered, Lizzie kept her stony face.

      "Ahhh Miss Windsor. Fear said that you had a rebellious nature, but you would be well advised to SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Lizzie felt someone grab her hair at the back and force her head down before releasing it sharply. Her skull didn't come into contact with the floor, but her neck ached the force with which the act had been performed. They were asserting their power over her and Lizzie knew that the fear she had would do her no good. If ever there was a moment to hide her emotions then now was it. 

      Be strong… a voice that sounded like a curious mix of three men echoed in her head… her father, Kurt and Logan. They wanted her to come through this, but Lizzie wasn't sure if she'd have a chance. 

      Slowly she lifted her head again, her dirt matted hair falling in front of her face, into her eye line. 

      Then she saw the man who had pushed her head, he stood like a behemoth above her, oh how she wanted the fear to come back to the pit of her stomach before she did something she regretted. 

      He had the eyes of a wolf, and looked as lethargic as the man, Jason, had been. He was obviously under the control of someone- her best guess was the blue mutant again. 

      He brought his hands out in front of him… instead of fingers he had talons, five clawed talons that he was flexing with glee. He leaned forward imposingly; again the breath caught in her throat, and stroked her chin with his claw…

"Beautiful…" he groaned, his voice somewhere between the roar of a wolf and the caw of an eagle. The talon was sharp against her skin, but it was his eyes not the razor like claws attached to his fingertips that freaked her out the most, even though she was aware he could rip through her body with his claws like she was raw meat. 

"Friedrich, we need her in one piece." The woman on the couch called, her voice still wavering. 

The monster turned and started to walk back to the woman, Lizzie suddenly realised that he was wearing the remnants of the 18th century costume too, but only remnants… the costume was ripped and torn pieces were missing almost as though his huge muscles had burst through from underneath whilst wearing it. 

"Please forgive Mr Von Roehm. He's still coming to terms with his change in appearance."

So she was right… they had just burst out. The mutant was now sitting beside the woman in whites couch and was licking her hand, like a devoted dog.

Now Lizzie was back to being afraid. "What do you want with me?" During her experience with the beast that was von Roehm Magneto had come around the edge of the desk, now he walked from behind her back into her view then halted. 

"You homo sapiens are always so concerned for your lives…" He moaned leaning down closer to her. A bubble burst in her gut, he didn't know she was one of them! That gave her some kind of power at least, that gave her an ace up her sleeve… or did it put her in more danger?

"Now where was I… oh yes. The Hellfire's inner sanctum your majesty have always been more concerned with other deals than with making money, you see we have another more urgent matter to deal with. You see…" He leaned in even closer, as if to impart some great secret, "We're going to take over the world." He smiled. "And you're going to help us!"

She scoffed. "How am I going to do that?"

"Simple… at some point those little defences you've set up in your brain… they'll fall and then we're going to be in control. We could be already, we have the power, but we want you alive." The angry voiced woman emerged from the shadows, but her face was still hidden, she wore a black cape over her gown, a cape with a deep cowl… all Lizzie could identify her with was a few curls of red hair that hung limp against the black. 

"Believe me if I could let them fall I would have years ago. They won't fall anytime soon, no matter what you do." Lizzie tried to come across as sure… but she wasn't, and she thought that they picked that up, although they didn't show it.

"I'm sure we'll find a way." Lizzie could tell the look on her face even through the darkness… the woman was smiling at the thought of what would happen to break her, to allow them into her mind.

"Take her back to the cell." The woman turned on her heal clicking her fingers. 

Magneto however didn't move from in front of her. Again he leaned forward grabbing her chin with his hand angling his face so hers and his met. He looked over it for a second…

"Von Roehm was right," he whispered, "You are beautiful." She shook her head forcibly. He let go of his grasp quickly and stood, looking angrily down at her. 

      "If you were a mutant, you'd be perfect. But your not- you're filth."

      She felt arms around hers again as she was hauled to her feet by Von Rhom and the man Emmanuel. They dragged her just as roughly as they had bringing her to the room out and into the hall. 

Not much went through Lizzie's head… except the fact that she'd managed, at least for the moment to conceal that which Magneto wanted. She'd again hidden the fact she was a mutant.

**Ala Queen. I want a re-view. I WA-NT A re-view! I want a review from my readers if they could be so court-e-ous. I want a Re-view. Muses Know, the Muses know I want a re-view!**

**Ten Minute brake as Digital performs the worst guitar solo that mankind has ever witnessed. If Brain May were dead he'd be spinning in his grave right about now.**   


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